


Spiderwebs and G-Strings

by Sweet_William



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Character, Crossdressing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gender Issues, Genderfluid Character, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Panties, Protective Tony Stark, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Trans Character, Trans Peter Parker, Underage Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 63,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26727094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweet_William/pseuds/Sweet_William
Summary: Based on an interview that revealed Tom Holland had to wear a thong under the Spiderman suit.Life isn't easy for teenaged heroes. Between school, villains, and lying to his aunt about school and villains, not to mention whatever the hell is going on with Mr. Stark, Peter's life is pretty complicated. Throw in a wardrobe malfunction that triggers a couple crises of the gender and sexuality variety, and a strange vigilante with a red suit that looks way too much like his, and it will be a while before this poor spiderling gets some peace.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 242
Kudos: 668





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the Tom Holland Spiderman, starts after Civil War and then picks back up after Homecoming. Will not acknowledge any movies past Homecoming. Infinity War who? We don't know her. Not compliant with the Deadpool movies, but is a version of Wade inspired more by them than the comics. Peter is 16 and Deadpool is 19. This was just written for fun so apologies if there are typos or grammar issues, I really don't care enough to keep looking it over. Not Beta Read we die like Tony Stark.

Chapter One

It takes precisely three patrols around New York before he realises that wearing boxers under his new suit is not an option, and going commando is even worse. With how tight the material of the new suit was, every bunched up line of his regular undergarments was visible, and without them very little was left to the imagination. He was already on the police’s bad side for being a vigilante, he didn't want to add public indecency to his rap sheet. 

On his surprise mission to Berlin with Mr. Stark, he had been given under-armour that covered most of his body and made underwear obsolete. Mr. Stark probably thought it hadn't been necessary when he would be fighting muggers instead of Avengers, or had maybe noticed it was more restrictive than Peter preferred, either way it wasn't with the suit when he was gifted it after the battle. Which was good because struggling into the extra padding took ages and he couldn't imagine having to either wear it under his clothes or wiggle into it every time he had to fight. The suit itself was plenty in his opinion. Excepting of course the underwear situation. 

He spent about five minutes one night, looking at his phone and blushing, trying to decide whether to call Mr. Stark and ask what he should do before chickening out and going on his computer instead. A few google searches (some of which ended up with sketchier results than his young eyes wanted to see) end with him having a few options via cosplayers, ballet dancers, and the like. The easiest and cheapest one was the more awkward option for a teenage boy not exactly confident in his masculinity. His mind flitted to all of the controversy when he first started about whether he was a guy or a girl. Thankfully it had been mostly put to bed when his hero name became more widely known. Mostly. 

He sat in his desk chair, as conflicted as a boy could be about underwear, when his aunt knocked and opened the door. He quickly closed his laptop and turned to face her with an unconvincing smile.

"Hey Pete, you feel like thai for dinner?" She asked, deciding to ignore whatever he had been up to, a decision she had been making often since she realised he was sneaking out on a regular basis. 

Spiderman had become an unspoken elephant in the Parker household, Peter doing his best to not let his secret identity slip, while she did her best to not act like she wanted to wrap him in bubble wrap and ground him for life. Or at least drug test him. She really didn’t know what he was up to, but she didn’t think it was anything good. It wasn't the most healthy dynamic but it was far better than what Peter thought would happen if she found out what he spent his nights doing.

"Ugh ya, sure. Thai would be great. I love thai." Peter rambled. 

"Oookay.. Well we'll leave in a bit then." She replied before leaving the room and erasing the awkward conversation from her mind.

The next day found him wandering a department store, having little idea where to find what he was looking for. But he had no idea how to sew what he needed, so random store it is. It took him a good twenty minutes before he found the women's underwear section. He stood in the aisle, as conflicted as a teenage boy surrounded by lingerie could be. 

"So, Peter. What the heck are we even looking for?" He mumbled to himself as his eyes quickly flitted over all sorts of bras and panties, the likes of which he had never seen excluding awkward encounters with his aunt’s laundry. 

"Excuse me? Is there something I can help you with?" 

Peter jumped a bit, his spidey-sense going off dully, and turned to see a middle-aged woman standing nearby with a pinched expression and an employee tag. 

"Oh. Ummm..." He quickly tried to come up with a suitable reason for him to be there, one that didn’t include superhero costumes, or would make him seem like a pervert. He couldn't think of anything.

"I think perhaps you might be in the wrong section, young man?" She said pointedly. 

"No! I mean. I wasn't... I was looking for, well I need..." He decided an almost truth would be both the least painful, and most helpful option. "I need something that won't show under something... tighter than I usually wear. But I am not really sure what the best option would be." 

The woman blinked a few times at him, before her expression turned into an understanding smile. Peter had a feeling she had misinterpreted him but didn’t feel the need to correct her. Though it would be kind of fun to see her face if she realised she was helping Spiderman shop for underwear.

"Well, I think we can find something that would work. Any preference for style, material, or colour?" She asked pleasantly.

"Uh, no. Just something that wont show. And be comfortable, I guess?" He answered uncertainly. He had never put this much thought into his underwear in his life.

"Ok then, how about..." She browsed the aisle thoughtfully. "This?" She handed him a small plastic hanger holding a blue thong made of lace. 

"Oh." He didn't know what else to say. Problem solving and researching somehow wasn't the same as actually thinking about buying this little number and wearing it. 

"Maybe something a bit more... casual?" He asked.

She nodded and went back to browsing before coming back with a small plastic package. He read the package quickly, before nodding. "Yeah, this will do fine. Thank you." He said with a smile. 

"Of course. Hope they work out." The woman replied with a smile before walking away. 

Ten minutes later he left the store with a plastic bag containing five cotton thongs in various colours, and a furious blush from going through checkout.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, people are actually reading this. Thanks! Love seeing those kudos. Maybe throw some comments in if you feel like it lol. Who else has posted their first fic during quarantine? I have a few chapters of this ready so I should be updating regularly for a while at least. Enjoy the new chapter; Enter Deadpool!

Chapter Two

The next morning presented an awkward decision. He sat in his room, staring at his suit and the plastic package. Either he would have to come home and change into his suit and his new… undergarments before patrol, or he would have to put them on right then and spend the entire day with his suit under his clothes like usual, with one unusual addition.

He gave himself a shake. “Come on, Spiderman. It’s just some underwear.”

He stripped out of his pajamas and quickly ripped open the package and shimmied into one of the thongs, noticing with irony it was a red not unlike his suit.

They fit alright, thankfully. The front was obviously a bit tight, in comparison to what he usually wore. And the back would take some getting use to. He had to admit though, that his butt looked pretty good. 

He cleared his throat at that thought and went back to dressing. Sure enough there was no sign of any lines under his suit, and as he shifted around he felt oddly more secure than he usually did in his… below regions. 

“Well, not bad.” He concluded before finishing getting dressed and ready for school.

-

School that day was... interesting. It took quite a while to get use to how the thong felt much more noticeable when he walked around and gave him a constant wedgie sensation. He spent a lot of time shifting in his seat, trying to not be obvious in his distraction. 

He failed, at least in the case of Michelle. 

“What’s your problem, Parker? Somebody slip you itching powder after gym again?” She deadpanned at him during Spanish. 

Wincing at the reminder of the very uncomfortable event, Peter answered “No, course not. Why do you ask?” He aimed for nonchalance and thoroughly failed. Partially due to still being mentally stuck on the itching powder incident. Being Spiderman meant he could heal from broken bones and stab wounds in a fraction of the time normal people did, but it meant nothing against the power of a pair of jeans filled with itching powder.

“Because you have been spending the entire day like a cartoon character with a bug dropped down their shirt.” At his confused expression she pantomimed an odd fidgety dance and he realised what she meant.

“Oh, no. Just umm, new… pants?” He lied. It was unconvincing to say the least, especially with how obviously worn his pants were.

“Sure, Parker. If you say so.” She said with a disinterest that might have been feigned, and returned to reading her book, which was on wig culture in Europe. 

Ned was oblivious, thankfully, as Peter really didn’t want to either lie, or tell his friend he was wearing a thong when he couldn’t explain why.

During lunch he was listening to Ned go on about how Captain America was still on the lam, and he thought it might be connected to how Spiderman hadn’t been around very much lately. 

“Maybe they’re working together! That would be so awesome! They could form their own Avengers!” He enthused in between bites of his pb and j.

“You know Captain America is technically a wanted criminal now, I don’t think Spiderman would want to make his reputation even worse by working with him.” Peter tried to make it sound like he was just reasoning it out, instead of actually being Spiderman and commenting on the issue.

“Yeah, I guess. Still would be cool, though!” He continued.

Peter envied the fact that Ned could idly muse about stuff like that. Peter had to actually make decisions about those things. He had people like Tony Stark come to him and ask for him to help take down a national icon. Which, don’t get him wrong was awesome! He stole Cap’s shield! But it had also been a head trip. 

He was just a kid when Captain America came back and helped fight off an alien invasion right there in New York. He could never have imagined fighting him. He never imagined meeting Mr. Stark or getting help learning to be a superhero from him. Times changed. And so did underwear.

Patrol was… nice, that afternoon. Aunt May was working so he was a free agent with no curfew, and it had been too long since he went on a good old-fashioned recon. He had missed being in his city, helping people and stopping everyday common criminals. No super-soldiers, no small but then giant men. And no weird chafing or worrying that someone would be offended by his crotch. The thong did its job, and he actually felt a bit freer in his movement, though that might have been in his head. Either way he was much more comfortable with his decision than when he had first bought them.

It was late at night, he had already called in his daily report to Happy, and he was about ready to head back home and try and get some sleep, when his spidey-sense went off. He followed it a few blocks over, swinging quickly between the buildings before reaching a dark alleyway. 

He crouched above, and watched the odd scene below him. There was a man in a red suit holding a sword to another man’s throat. The suit looked way too much like his, though it was bulkier, armoured with black patches over the eyes. Peter didn’t appreciate a criminal having any resemblance to him, if the police mistook the man for him, his reputation would get even worse. The press would have a field day if they heard Spiderman had been sighted with a _sword_.

He jumped down into the alley as the man shouted “I mean it, you shit-weasel! Give me a name or I’ll play kickball with your head!”

“Hey! Let him go!” Peter shouted, worried things were about to escalate.

The man looked over his shoulder and his eyes went wide (his masks eye’s moved like Peter’s, which was another similarity he did not like) 

He whirled around with a gasp, seeming to lose interest in his interrogation. “Spidey! I can’t believe it! To think little old me would run into you?” He gushed with an almost girlish excitement. 

“Put the sword down.” He tried for commanding, but it didn’t seem to work since the man just continued to babble, not even noticing that whoever he had been threatening used the distraction to slip past him and run away.

“Guess this is my lucky night! You know, I have wanted to meet you ever since I first saw that spandex covered ass on the news. And you are even more spiderific in person.”

Peter was starting to get mad. And embarrassed. Most criminals tried to shoot him, they didn’t flirt or talk about his ass. “Don’t talk to me like that!” He growled. 

“Aawww don’t get all touchy, Spidey. Or do get touchy, I wouldn’t mind.” He said with a wink.

“Dude… Shut up!” Peter attacked, kicking the sword out of the man’s hand before knocking him back into the alley wall. 

“You could at least buy me dinner first.” The man quipped as Peter webbed him to the wall, somewhat suspiciously docile about being captured by the web-slinger. 

“You wish, whoever you are. Sit tight, I’ll send the police your way soon. Have a good night, and please stop looking like me.” With a final salute he launched back up the to the rooftops, ready to be done with the odd exchange. 

As he swung away, he heard the man yell behind him. “Deadpool! And you wear it better, but I’ve worn it longer!”


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yo, back at it again with the updating quickly! I'm on a roll. There's way more people reading this than I was expecting. Lovin all the kudos, maybe throw down a comment to let me know what you think so far! Anywho, here ya go. Just a quick one tonight, last chapter before we time skip to after Homecoming. Enjoy!

Chapter Three

He started wearing a thong every day. After a couple weeks he went back to the store for more, and a few actually caught his eye in a less practical way. Over time he amassed a decent repertoire of not just thongs, but any other kinds of panties that he thought wouldn’t show under his suit. Turned out lace was even less visible than cotton. The only real complaint he had had so far was dealing with boners. Turned out, the tighter your drawers, the harder it was to… well he had a few more awkward teen boy moments than before. And of course, he guarded the secret of his choice underwear almost as well as his secret of being a superhero. At first he was pretty paranoid about it, Flash had enough ammunition without adding an unexplainable penchant for traditionally female underwear. The last thing he wanted was to go from “Penis Parker” to “Panties Parker” 

But it turned out that it was pretty easy to not let someone see you without pants on. He already changed for PE in the bathroom to hide his magic spider muscles, and it wasn’t like he sagged his pants or anything. So really no one should have found out. Except then someone did.

He had just finished an afternoon patrol and was in his room waiting for dinner. The day had been a little more tiring than usual, with a history test he hadn’t studied for (he had actually completely forgotten about it) and a close encounter with a mugger and a sawed off shotgun. 

“Why can’t they all just have those tiny pistols?” He mused out loud, flopping onto his bed, stripped out of his suit but feeling too lazy at the moment to put civvies back on, so he was only wearing a dark blue thong.

All of a sudden the door opened and Ned backed in, “Yeah, sure May, my mother isn’t expecting me back for a bit. Hey, Peter. Thought I would stop by, you seemed freaked after history…” he trailed off after he closed the door and actually turned to look at Peter.

He was frozen on the bed, not really knowing how to handle the sudden intrusion.

“Are you wearing… panties?”

“What?! No! These are… um. These are just..” He stuttered out, finally springing up from his bed and scrambling to find pants. Regrettably, this gave Ned a view from the back. 

“Dude! Why are you wearing a thong!?” 

“Quiet!” Peter frantically hushed, struggling into pants and praying to the god of teenage spiders that Aunt May hadn’t heard anything .

Ned looked somewhat chastised, but mostly he just seemed confused and a little in shock from unexpectedly seeing Peter’s ass.

“Please tell me this isn’t a kink thing because I really don’t need to know that much about you, I’m still recovering from when we played truth or dare with Michelle.”

Peter shuddered a bit at the memory. No one had been spared that day. “No, Ned. I do  _ not  _ have a panty fetish.”

_ I think... _ he thought vaguely, still a bit annoyed with the boner thing.

“Then why are you wearing those?” He asked again, now more curious than anything.

“They umm… were a gift?” Peter lied, hitting a wall in what to say.

Ned’s face screwed up, and he realised what conclusion he could be drawing.

“It was a.. joke? An inside, long story joke? And I kinda just wore them as a joke?” He rambled on, hoping that what he was saying somehow made sense.

“Then… if it was a joke, why are you still wearing them?” 

Damn it, almost got away with it.

“They’re… comfortable?” He replied hesitantly, hoping that this would be an acceptable answer. 

Ned cocked his head to the side and squinted his eyes for a minute while he considered that. Peter tried not to fidget. He failed.

“If you say so. Want to play some video games? Your Aunt invited me to stay until dinner.”

Peter sighed in relief that his friend was letting it go, and nodded before going to grab the controllers. 

_ So I made it through that with at least a scrap of my dignity left.  _ He thought.  _ Let’s just hope no one else finds out. _


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are officially too many people reading this! Why are you all here?! (Seriously tell me why...) We are officially post-movie! After this we are no longer going to be acknowledging MCU canon, because Peter is too busy being worried about being a gay little spider to worry about Thanos. Still going forward it might be more obvious that I don't really care that much about what's canon and will pull from the comics on occasion when it suits me. Okay, now that I've covered my ass, LE-GO!

Chapter four

People did find out. But not until after he tried to bust a weapons deal, almost drowned, tried to stop a robbery, got locked in a bunker, blew up a national monument, blew up a ship, lost his suit, got a girlfriend, almost got killed by her dad, got his suit back, and lost his girlfriend. And that was just the highlights. 

But he wasn’t thinking about any of that now. He was freaking out for different reasons.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?”

He turned around, half hoping he was hallucinating. But no. She was right behind him. 

Aunt May was staring at Peter in disbelief. And either rage or nausea. Peter, who was wearing Spiderman’s unmistakable costume. Excluding the mask, of course. Plausible deniability did not exist in that moment.

“Aunt May… I can explain.” 

He couldn’t really. Not in a good way. In a I-am-teenage-vigilante way. Which was definitely a bad way.

“I am going to  _ kill _ Tony Stark.” 

Peter blinked. Sometimes his aunt was a bit too quick on the draw, even for him.

After one Spiderman suit almost put in the garbage disposal, one traumatising phone call to Mr. Stark (traumatising for all parties), one heart-to-heart that lasts until four in the morning, and a whole lot of negotiating rules, they started to figure it out.

May seemed to understand that there was no chance of Peter retiring from crime fighting, which was good because he didn’t know what he would do if she tried to make him stop. He had learned didn’t need the suit, that was true, but he also knew more than ever before that Spiderman was who he was. A part of him. 

Thankfully she knew it too. She wasn’t happy with it, but she understood. So there were rules now. Like that he had to come home at some point every day even if she was working, had to tell her any night that he went out on patrol, report any and all injuries, and that Tony would link her into the suits (newly rebooted) gps. It was all tiring and he would probably disobey purely out of forgetfulness more often than not. 

Of course he spent the next week being as well behaved as he could. He came home promptly for dinner, made sure no muggers stabbed him, and managed to not end up in any negative news articles. A model teenage mutant. And then Aunt May found his underwear.

He had stopped being as territorial about his room, as there was no hidden Spidertech to protect, so May had felt free to go inside to put away some laundry instead of leaving it by the door. Of course, the first drawer she opened was not the shirt drawer. It was the panty drawer. 

When Peter came home twenty minutes later, he found his aunt sitting on the couch with the entire pile of panties in front of her.

“Whyyyy?” She asked in the most perplexed voice possible, gesturing to the admittedly sizeable pile. She was really praying that she wasn’t about to find out Spiderman was a part-time panty thief or something. She was sure she raised Peter better than that.

“They don’t show under my suit?” He didn’t know why it came out a question. 

“You need more thongs and g-strings than me. So you can be Spiderman. Without a panty line.” 

“Yes?”

May sighed in relief at having an innocent explanation, except after a pause she realised it couldn’t be the whole answer.

“Ok, I could almost believe that. Except.”

Peter cringed as she started sorting out specific articles. Like one pair with little ribbons, or another pair that was made of lace and had flower patterns. It was rather apparent they had not all been bought with functionality in mind.

“Those were on sale?” He tried weakly.

She laughed and patted the space next to her. He sat down reluctantly.

“Listen, Peter. If you want to wear this kind of stuff, it’s ok. I guess I was your age when I started caring about what I wore.” Privately she also was thinking there were certain… things people sometimes started to realise about themselves at Peter’s age.

“But… They’re for girls. And I’m a guy.” He said, looking down at his lap.

“Says who? Would you think there was something wrong with me if I wore boxers?” When he shook his head she continued, placing an arm around his shoulder. “You want to pick out your own underwear, I think it will be quite a bit easier to deal with than say… you being Spiderman for example.”

“So that’s it then? It’s ok?” Peter asked hesitantly, still expecting some uncomfortable questions.

“Well, there is one thing.” May said with a more serious tone to her voice.

He braced himself. “And that would be?”

“Do you even know how to wash these properly?” She asked, sounding like she expected the answer to be no, which was confirmed when he smiled sheepishly.

“Ok. Time for a lesson on how to treat delicates.” She announced.

Peter blushed, but past the embarrassment he was really thankful that he had such a cool aunt.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guy! Loving all the attention. Now not to pressure you about the whole leaving kudos and comments thing, but we are getting close to getting 69 kudos and I'm pretty excited about it. Anywaay, New chapter! And what's this? Are we approaching something that resembles an actual plot? There will be some handwaving here about how Peter's powers work, but whatever. Spideysense exists purely to make plot and jokes. Also reiterating that I really like movie Deadpool so mine sounds a lot like him, but he is not the same! Adult Deadpool and Teenage Peter is a little bad touch for me. Shutting up now, enjoy the shenanigans.

Chapter Five

After everything that had happened, Peter just wanted some peace. Or at least what equaled peace in his weird web-slinging life. In between the Avengers, the Vulture, everything with his aunt, he just wanted some peace. Even his birthday had passed during the stress-filled period after he took down Vulture where he was still figuring out what his next step was. 

Now though, everything was good. He had his awesome tech-filled suit from Mr. Stark with Karen to help him, things were good between him and his aunt, and he finally got caught up in his school reading. So, he was ready for some peace, and for once it seemed like he was going to have it. 

The day started with so much promise. He got up on time, Aunt May made somewhat edible gluten-free pancakes, he was wearing a really cute thong with little strawberries on it and a nice graphic tee, and he had no tests that day. It seemed like it would be a super peaceful, productive day for the crime fighter. Except everything went downhill from there. 

First it started raining, and nothing ruins feeling like you look nice and your hair is behaving like getting drenched because  _ superheroes _ don’t carry  _ umbrellas _ , May, Jeez! Then he almost forgot to under-perform in gym and got flustered, resulting in him falling from the top of the climbing rope. Ned wouldn’t be forgetting that for a long time, and Flash had a field day taunting him. And to finish off his school day he had to skip the decathlon team practice because of a robbery. 

A few hours later Peter was pouting on a rooftop. Thankfully the rain had petered out, but the past few hours of taking out his frustrations on damp criminals hadn’t helped his mood. In fact it had somewhat soured. So when his spidey-sense pinged for the tenth time that night without any discernible cause, he was ready to scream.

Why did it seem like his most trusted ability was suddenly malfunctioning? Instead of the momentary and dependable pings that led him to thugs and bank robbers, and helped him dodge punches and bullets, it was sending an almost constant stream of ‘Lookout!’ mixed with occasional louder bleeps of ‘Seriously, oh no!’ almost like danger was just… following him around. The entire time he was on patrol.

“Crap!” He swore, and stood up from his pouting spot to scope the surroundings. He was such an idiot. How did he not realise someone was following him? What a rookie mistake! No wonder Mr. Stark barely ever called him in to help out. 

A few minutes of backtracking, following the random pings in his brain, and he spotted a red suit darting behind a chimney. 

“Hey! You! Get back here. Why are you following me?” He shouted. 

No one answered or came into view, so he slowly circled the chimney, arm raised ready to attack. Whoever was in the red suit, they would regret following him. But there was no one on the other side. He stared in confusion at the bricks, before a whistle sounded behind him. He whirled around to see the person, a man it looked like, in the red suit casually reclining on the edge of the roof.

“Well hi there, Spidey. Long time no see.” He chirped, sounding too cheerful for a man who just got caught stalking someone.

“Not as long for you as me, seeing as you’ve been following me for who knows how long, and I’ve never met you.” Peter grumbled. “Tell me why you were following me, now! I wont ask again.”

“Oooh I like a man who demands what he wants.” The man purred. “Though, you seem a little mixed up there. We have too met! It was a beautiful moonlit night, the sound of distant violins in the air, and a certain dashing web-slinger came down from the heavens to honor me with the sight of his ass.”

Peter shifted uncomfortably and narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about? That sounds like a pervy noir film.”

The man pouted, which was odd to see because you really shouldn’t have been able to tell through his mask. “I’m hurt, hot stuff. You really don’t remember me?”

He shook his head. The man was slightly familiar, but that might have just been on account of the similar suit. 

“Alright. Well apparently last time I didn’t give a lasting impression. Let me fix that.” He stood up from his lounging position and gave a theatrical bow. “Deadpool, at your service.”

Peter didn’t really pay that much attention to his antics as when the man bowed, he caught sight of the two swords strapped to his back, and that along with his name and the comment about his ass made him suddenly recall the night he had caught ‘Deadpool’ interrogating some guy in an alley.

“You!?” He asked in shock. “That was ages ago! Why are you stalking me? God you better not have been following me this whole time!” If he had been followed for that long, who knew what he had found out! His address, his identity, where he hid his backpack… if Mr. Stark heard about this, he would never live it down.

“Oh no no no, not since then.” He reassured. “Just last week. Physically that is. I have been keeping my eye on you for a lot longer, though.” And that was less than reassuring. “It’s hard not to since you’re so darn cute.” He flirted. 

“Would you stop talking to me like that! I’m a crime fighter, and you are a criminal! And stop stalking me!”

“Stalking is a strong word. So negative. More like we had some romantic nighttime rendezvous that you didn’t realize were happening. And I am not a criminal! Just a… frenemy with the law.” 

“No, ok! No!” Peter yelled in frustration. This guy was so aggravating and didn’t seem bothered that he was a super-powered vigilante that was actively threatening him. Who did that?

“Hey, calm down, Spidey. Seems I’ve cucked up.” He muttered, seeming down all of a sudden. “I suppose someone like you wouldn’t appreciate my company. Damn it, this is Reed’s book club all over again...” 

Peter for some reason started to feel a bit guilty. This guy was clearly dangerous. But he was also kind of… endearing? And apparently he was now sad, thanks to Peter. Heroes weren't suppose to make people sad, even weird people who had at least three visible guns and four knives strapped to them.

“The first night we met… what were you doing?”

“Oh that? I was on a bounty. Looking for the head dickweed of a heroin workshop in Hells Kitchen. That guy was a poppy resin supplier. Like, what a shitty florist. If he hadn’t gotten away I woulda funked his junk. I think Horny caught up to him eventually...”

“Oh.” Peter was a bit taken-aback. That wasn’t what he was expecting. He thought this guy was a low-level villain or maybe just an eccentric thug. He wasn’t expecting something so… understandable. Of course he was still dangerous and seemed a little unhinged. But if he was against the same things as Peter, like drug dealing dicks, then he couldn’t be that bad. And he assumed the casual mention of “Horny” meant he was familiar with DareDevil, and no one  _ really _ bad got away from DareDevil.

“Well... that’s actually kind of cool, I guess.” He mused. 

“Really?!” Deadpool said in surprise, instantly perking up.

“Uh. Ya. I mean, I spend my nights beating up guys like that, so I can’t really say anything about you doing the same thing.”

“You really think I’m like you?” Deadpool asked, something uncomfortably close to awe in his tone.

Peter laughed awkwardly. Was this how Mr. Stark felt the first time he tried to hug him? He was saved from having to come up with something to say by his stomach loudly growling. 

“Oh.” He didn’t even realize how late into the night it was, he had definitely missed dinner.

“Hey Spidey, I don’t suppose you would like to go get some grub? I know a great place near here to get some pie.” Deadpool said both shyly, and with an almost heartbreaking amount of hope.

Would that really be a good move? Should he even be talking to this guy? He barely knew him. And what he did know wasn’t exactly… 

Deadpool was waiting for his answer, the eyes on his mask wide open and earnest.

No one so sincere could be bad. Even if he was super weird.

“Yeah, that would be cool.” 

His words were immediately met by a girlish squeal and an odd little dance.

What did he just agree to?


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELL YA we making numbers! Thank you all! I hope you guys still like this as it starts getting more plotty. You get lotsa Deadpool this chapter. And about the age thing. For the record in real life a 19 year old should NOT be interested in a 16 year old. It would be super unhealthy and icky, but A this is fiction, and B I am accounting for a mature Peter thru spider trauma. That should be a tag, SPIDER TRAUMA. Also I didn't think a Deadpool that was any younger than 19 was possible. I kinda shrugged at any kind of timeline to make it work. I guess if Wade enlisted right out of high school and got cancer a year later it almost makes sense for him to be 19. Either way he hasn't been Deadpool for ages, and no vanessa. And no boxes, Sorry! I love the boxes but they are A LOT to write and I didn't think they fit this fic. Okay I will stop now and let you enjoy the queer super dorks, Ta!

Chapter Six

“Is this place called… Totino’s?” Peter asked hesitantly as he read the sign above the place Deadpool enthusiastically led him to.

“Yeah, weird name for a pizza joint I know, it use to be a gay bar and kept the name. They will still give you a tequila shot if you ask really nicely.” Deadpool said in a cheerful voice as they headed in.

“That’s… not really…” He trailed off, not sure where to even begin. He was already starting to suspect this was not something that he should be doing. Mr. Stark probably wouldn’t be too happy he was hanging out with the kind of guy who kept a smoke bomb strapped to his waist. And just when he was finally starting to trust Peter’s judgement…

He was tired of always having to think ten steps ahead for possible consequences. “I wish I was old enough to drink…” He muttered under his breath, looking around the pizza parlour, which was mostly normal except some obvious remnants from its days as a gay bar, like someone went around replacing the italian flags with rainbow ones and the plastic tablecloths with a light coating of glitter.

Apparently he wasn’t as quiet as he thought, or he was just learning another lesson about expecting most people in costumes to have super hearing, super strength, or the ability to see through walls just in time to see you doing something embarrassing, as Deadpool gave him a look that made it clear he heard him and was processing the new info that he wasn’t twenty one.

“Oh, well.” Peter braced himself for the inevitable, well crap you’re a kid? I can’t hang with a kid! Who’s letting you do important dangerous things! Shouldn’t you be in kindergarten? “I mean that never stops me, but I guess you gotta keep those spideyhands squeaky clean.” He said simply before turning back to look at the menu.

It was a good thing he had a mask on, because the grin on his face would totally give away how happy he was to be having a conversation about underage drinking while out as Spiderman. Not many people realised how young he was, but this was by far the best reaction he had gotten. Next time he felt like wilting under the judgemental gaze of an adult hero, he would just remember he wasn’t the only young vigilante in the business.

They both ordered, the girl at the register nonplussed to see the costumed pair, and in no time they were scaling back to the rooftops armed with one pepperoni pizza, and one pineapple and olive. Deadpool insisted on paying, and used only dollar bills.

“I gotta take less foreign jobs, my pizza intake has been far from what it should be these days.” Deadpool said seriously, popping open the box with a flourish. He didn’t take a slice, though.

“Well, that’s not allowed. Rule one of being American, minimum pizza or burger consumption.” Peter shot back as he pulled up his mask enough to eat.

“Being Canadian is so boring in comparison. All maple syrup and Tim Hortons. At least there’s another Wolverine origin story movie every few years.” Deadpool remarked.

“You’re Canadian?” Peter asked, deciding that was the only part he could really comment on. Wolverine? Wasn’t that the hairy short guy with the X-Men who was always angry and rocking a tight vest?

“Yeah! They didn’t tell-” the rest of the question was cut off when he looked up and saw his partially lifted mask, his eyes going wide.

“What? Sauce on my face?”

“No, but you have CUTE on your face! That’s not fair, you aren’t allowed to look like that in your tight little suit and not be secretly hideous underneath! I was at least counting on a porn stache or something.” Deadpool gushed, his hands coming up to his cheeks as he wiggled in his seat.

“How could you possibly tell what I look like from just my mouth and chin?” He responded, knowing his exposed cheeks were definitely turning red.

“If I pulled my mask up you wouldn’t ask that.” Deadpool shot back cheerfully. “But I wouldn’t wanna put you off your pie.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Aren’t you going to eat?” Peter asked, strangely disappointed. Why did he ask him to get food if he wasn’t going to eat with him?

He seemed to think for a minute before sighing. “Alright, might as well rip this bandaid off.” He said, then continued to muse in a dejected voice. “And the skin under the bandaid. In a painful gory mess. That is my face. And body. I mean who am I trying to impress here? Obviously you, but making a good impression was sorta a lost cause already next to all that web-slinging glory.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it, just promise to be gentle when you roast me with the Avengers later.” He responded before lifting his mask up to his nose without any more dramatics.

Peter made himself not react, but it was a near thing. Every inch of skin that the other man had exposed was covered in scars. Every. Inch. Like he had been through an acid attack or a fire. He started quickly eating his pizza, like he had a time limit now that he was exposed.

“Do you know how to play hockey?” Don’t ask him why that’s what came out of Peter’s mouth. He didn’t know. 

In the past half hour he found out Deadpool was around his age, a bounty hunter or something close, Canadian, and was most likely scarred over a large portion of his body. He was a socially awkward high school student, what else was he supposed to do except pick the least risky fact and run with it?

Deadpool seemed pretty surprised, pausing with a slice half way to his mouth. Peter held his breath, waiting to see if he offended him. Instead, a huge grin spread across his face, and he tipped his head back and laughed. And it was good he already wasn’t breathing, because he couldn’t help realising, if you actually bothered to look at more than the scars, Deadpool had this  _ very _ strong jawline, and his teeth were  _ very _ white and straight, and the cheekbones peeking from the edge of his mask looked  _ very _ sharp. He almost wanted to ask to see the rest of his face, but that would be weird, right? All in all something about him was… enticing. 

And with that thought, he shut the mental trainwreck down and focused back on his pizza. Recent events and clothing choices had already upset his self image enough, he wasn’t about to jump down the rabbit hole that thought led to.

“Not really my forte, but you should see me on a zamboni!”


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohmigod I love you guys! You're giving me so much serotonin, which lets be honest everyone needs more of these days. We are starting to get closer to the gender and sexuality issues tags, I feel like I should state I am not cis or straight, and I am basing a lot of this on my experience or my friends. Obviously everyone's experiences are different, and I'll do my best to respect that. Also I feel like since Peter is underage I really need to state Wade is not being predatory, and Peter isn't genuinely uncomfortable with him flirting, he's just an awkward bean. He's in that weird baby gay stage where he doesn't know what's going on. That being said I hope I am being respectful of their ages.

Chapter Seven

He ended up spending a couple hours with Deadpool. The other man scarfed down his pizza with impressive speed so he could pull his mask back down, but didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. Peter was a little worried someone would see him with the hired gun, but enjoyed chatting with him too much to leave when the man seemed so happy with the turn of events. 

Still, he wasn’t exactly under the radar the way he used to be. The days of Spiderman being a free agent were over. Now he had a hovering aunt to ground him if he wasn’t smart with his Spider Business, and Mr. Stark was keeping in contact a lot more, actually responding to his texts as well as sending some of his own at least a few times a week, making it clear he was paying attention to what his protege was getting up to on a daily basis.

Eventually Karen started bugging about his curfew, and reminded him about Iron Man related surveillance, so he made himself say good night.

“Of course, gotta get your beauty rest. Well, I wish you sweet, sweet dreams, Baby boy.” Deadpool said in a tone that made the comment not so innocent.

“...Right. You too?” Peter replied awkwardly. No one had actually flirted with him before, and now that he was being friendly instead of combative with the man, he didn’t really know how to react. Especially since it was a guy.

“Oh, after getting to see the one and only Spiderman, you bet my dreams will be very sweet.” He said with a wink before dropping off the edge of the roof.

Peter spent a minute stuck to the spot, his cheeks burning under his mask, before he shook himself and took off to head home. Once he was out of costume and settled in bed, he did his best to dismiss the encounter from his mind. He probably wouldn’t see the other vigilante again. Best to forget about it.  _ I mean,  _ Baby boy _?  _ He thought as he drifted off to sleep.  _ Seriously? So weird! _

Over the next week, there wasn’t any sign of the sword-wielding man. Apparently now that they had formally met, Deadpool didn’t feel the need to follow him around. The whole week was actually quiet in general, his patrols mostly including giving tourists directions and helping civilians in not-crime-related ways. As such, Aunt May in the name of her new initiative to make sure he took breaks from his alter ego, something no one had been around to push him about before, had him set up a sleep over with Ned.

Before he would have felt guilty taking the night off, but after the Graves incident he had a new appreciation for some of the more mundane parts of his life, and he found it a lot easier to enjoy spending time with his best friend. Ned was pretty hyped, he had a new Lego set and a slew of Spiderman related questions that he couldn’t ask when they were sitting in the school cafeteria.

“Do you think you could grow back a limb if it got cut off?” He asked while looking for the missing piece for the AT-AT leg he was putting together.

“I doubt it? I was bit by a spider, not a lizard. And maybe don’t talk about me losing limbs, I feel like that’s tempting fate.” Peter replied as he stood up. It was getting late and he was starting to feel sleepy, and something about being sleepy made jeans super uncomfortable. He went over to his dresser and started changing into pajamas, nodding and making noises to signal he was still listening as Ned went on about various animals’ ability to regenerate limbs. He was distracted by looking for his favourite pair of fuzzy sleep pants, and didn’t notice when his friend abruptly stopped talking. When he had found them and turned back after finishing dressing, he saw that Ned was no longer fiddling with the leg and was staring at him with an uncomfortable look on his face.

“What?”

“You’re still… wearing girl’s underwear?” Ned asked.

“Oh. Right. I sort of lied to you about that, didn’t I?” Peter replied awkwardly. “I actually started wearing… uh. Well, see the suit is pretty tight? And you could see my boxers really obviously under them.” He explained, glad at least he had a real answer this time. Still, his aunt’s support hadn’t completely erased the rush of shame he had at his clothing choices.

Ned cocked his head to the side, thinking. “Ooooh. That makes way more sense than what I… I mean, it’s fine! Whatever reason you have. For that. It’s totally fine. But before I was.. I was kind of wondering if it might be like… Valerie?”

Peter’s already red face flamed at the suggestion. Valerie was one of their classmates. She was really nice, they had Chem together. A year ago, her name was Tommy. One day Tommy started wearing leggings to school. And then a skirt. And then her name wasn’t Tommy anymore, it was Valerie. At the time it had been big news, and more than a couple people had given her grief over it. But Midtown was a pretty progressive school, so eventually most people accepted who she was, and except a few jerks it wasn’t treated like a big deal. And it wasn’t, there wasn’t anything wrong with Valerie or other people like her. Still. Peter wasn’t like that. Peter wasn’t a girl. Peter was Spider _ MAN _ .

“No, dude. I mean, I’m, I’m straight. And all that. Cishet. That’s the term, right? It’s just underwear. Not like I wear anything else different.” He said with forced casualness.

“Right. I mean, nothing wrong with any of that. If you were, anything other than cishet. It would be okay. But alright, if you aren’t.” Ned said, just as forced, studiously keeping his eyes on a pile of legos he was sorting. His friend’s insistence wasn’t really doing anything except reminding him of all the times he felt like there was  _ something _ way more complicated going on between Peter and Flash than typical bullying.

“Right.”

“Right.”

God they were awkward. He needed to change the subject. Thankfully there was a subject that Ned was always happy to talk about, that had nothing to do with his sexuality or gender.

“Hey, have you ever heard of a vigilante named Deadpool?”


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thank you guys for the comments! And I totally didn't take a screenshot when we got to 69 kudos, no siree. You know, I started this fic just wanting underwear shenanigans but somehow my love for lgbtq spiderman headcanons and a weakness for making everything a cute romance made... whatever this is. Sue me I'm a gendefluid bi mess with too much quarantine time on my hands. I just think it's a neat concept. Insert potato meme. Hey! We finally get some Tony this chapter, he's not just a skulking daddy figure in the background.

Chapter Eight

Ned hadn’t heard of Deadpool, but it derailed the conversation just like he wanted. Unfortunately that didn’t mean Peter forgot about it. For some reason he kept remembering his denial that he was anything like Valerie because he only wore one thing that was weird and it was for a practical reason, even if at this point he had admitted there was a certain… aesthetic appreciation going on. Nobody should judge Mr. Stark for wearing a giant gaudy watch all the time when he only wore it so he had a repulsor on him. So no one should say him wearing panties meant anything except a commitment to heroism. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

Speaking of Mr. Stark, he continued his streak of being around more by inviting him over to the Avengers compound to play around with a new prototype for his web shooters. Afterwards he ordered burgers and took him to his workshop to tweak the design. It was so close to what Peter imagined and dreamed about after Berlin that it was almost surreal.

“So your aunt tells me you’re doing well in school.” Mr. Stark commented awkwardly, like a guy who hasn’t had to think about high school in at least two decades.

“You guys talk about my grades?” he asked, weirded out.

“Ever since you let the spider out the bag and she tore me a new one, I’ve been trying to do my best to show her I’m actually fit to have children exposed to me. Guess my public reputation hasn’t recovered enough from my twenties for it to seem like I should be adding ‘mentor’ to my resume. For a while I was worried she was going to sic CPS on me or something. Maybe call that psychic dude in the wheelchair, he’s always up for judging people when it comes to how to handle enterprising mutant youths.” He said the last part under his breath like he forgot he was actually talking to someone, but then looked back at Peter with a smile. “Apparently I didn’t do you any favours throwing a super suit at you and then not doing things like making sure you did your homework and know how to parallel park. So yeah, Hot aunt May says you are doing great.”

“Please stop calling my aunt hot.” Peter said with a mutter, determinedly not looking up from where he was soldering.

“What? It’s a compliment! Us italians gotta stick together, and that’s you too by proxy.” Mr. Stark shot back with a smirk. A minute later it dropped and he suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Soooo. The suit is good? What did you name the AI, Karen? She helpful? No issues with her or… anything else?”

“Uh, yeah? The suit is great. Karen’s great. No problems at all.” He answered, confused. It seemed like Mr. Stark was hinting at something specific, but ever since he got it back, the suit had been perfect. Then to Peter’s horror, he saw the other man’s eyes flick down to his crotch real quick, like he didn’t actually mean to look. If it was anyone else he would have felt a little grossed out, but suddenly he realised what they were actually talking about.

“She told you?!” He blurted out.

“Well, in her defense-” The man started to explain as Peter slumped in his chair and covered his face with his hands, like if he couldn’t see, he wouldn’t be having the conversation he was having. “In her defense, she was just making sure it wasn’t coming from a weird place. I did give you the suit after all. That’s really the headline we need, right? ‘Tony Stark caught peddling panties to preteens.’”

“I am sixteen!” Peter refuted, his voice almost a moan from the embarrassment.

“Whatever, the alliteration worked better. And it was my bad anyway. The Iron Man suit works no matter what I have on underneath, I didn’t think about the logistics for you. But I have made a few designs for tactical stuff, it would be easy to throw together something that’s not… so it’s not an issue anymore. If you want.” Mr. Stark offered, his tone finally fitting how uncomfortable the topic at hand was.

Peter froze. Because hey, if he had been telling himself the truth, he was just wearing panties because it was practical. Yes, he liked how his butt look in a thong, and he liked spending a minute in the morning deciding if he was in the mood for florals, and he found “boy shorts” that weren’t actually for boys way more comfortable than actual boxers, and… he didn’t want Mr. Stark to make him something practical and boring. Peter hadn’t been telling himself the truth, and the underwear situation officially had nothing to do with Spiderman. He liked wearing something he thought was cute. And pretty. They made him feel pretty. He wasn’t really sure what it meant, but he wanted to be pretty.

He lowered his hands from his face and tried to school his expression something neutral. “It’s fine, Mr. Stark. Really, you don’t have to go to all that trouble. The suit and Karen are more than enough.” He finally answered, after not answering for maybe too long.

“You sure, Kid? It’s not like underwear is anywhere near my list of things that are difficult to make.” The man pushed. Peter had become a challenge of dealing with how needy a teenager was, but also figuring out when the kid really needed help but wasn’t asking for it. At least May was the one who had to worry about the day to day stuff like making sure he didn’t eat too much sugary cereal and wore clean… things that he was wearing.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. And please forget that we ever talked about this, cause if you don’t I might have to smack my head against something repeatedly and hope my spider powers don’t prevent me from getting amnesia.” Peter pleaded, only half joking.

Tony nodded, debating internally if he should address what he thought the kid wasn’t saying. He had been around Peter’s age when he started to notice certain… things. It would have saved him a lot of heartache and confusion if someone had talked to him about how a person’s identity wasn’t as black and white as he had been raised to believe. But something about the vaguely hunted look on Peter’s face told him the kid wasn’t up for that kind of conversation. Not yet anyway.

“Cool, cool. But uh, little advice from a billionaire with suits that cost more than some houses do? When one is buying… socks. It might be tempting to buy the store brand ones that cost a third what the other ones do. But in two months when those socks are already full of holes and faded from the wash, you’ll pay for not going for quality. Capiche?”

Peter’s face was flaming but he nodded mutely.

“Good. So! This formula you are working on for your web fluid! I was thinking…”

Peter listened to him ramble on, and felt something unclench in his chest. That was not a fun conversation, but he felt a little lighter after it. And hey, it could have been worse. At least it seemed like Mr. Stark didn’t know about Deadpool.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, missed an update whoops. Thank you for all the comments! And Kudos! All the things! This is A Fun chapter! I've been excited for this one, we got more Deadpool hell yeaaa. Bonus points for any readers who spot where I had to physically restrain myself from calling Wade THICC. We've also got Karen coming in to be an absolute Bro.

Chapter Nine

Peter didn’t actually expect to see Deadpool again. Maybe something in passing once in a blue moon, like when he would spot Daredevil or that alien guy with all the teeth on a nearby roof, but nothing more. The other man may have admitted to being under twenty one, but he was still obviously older and more experienced than he was. That plus his casual mention of taking too many “foreign jobs” made it sound like despite him seeming to enjoy their little hangout, it was unlikely it would happen again.

So he was pretty surprised when he was out one night patrolling, and while he was hanging a cursing attempted-mugger from a streetlight for the cops to collect, someone started slow-clapping behind him. He turned, expecting to see a civilian hero fan or something, but instead there was Deadpool, leaning casually against a parked car applauding him.

“Hello, Starshine. I like your style, talk about hanging a guy out to dry.” Deadpool complimented.

“Deadpool! Hey. Hi. Uh, thanks?” He greeted the other vigilante, hoping he didn’t sound too excited.

“Screw both of you! Let me down!” The mugger yelled.

“Yeah, not going to happen.” Peter answered, shoving the man’s shoe so he started spinning around in a circle from the web he was suspended in, prompting another string of swear words. “The police will get you down when they come arrest you.”

“How come you didn’t hang me from anything that time you caught me? I feel cheated Spidey.” Deadpool asked with a pout.

“Sorry? I will next time I see you threatening someone with a sword?” He replied as he shot a web over the still yelling man’s mouth.

“Ooh, don’t make promises you wont keep, Spiderman. I’ll start getting ideas about exactly what I’d like you to do with those webs.” Deadpool said salaciously as he pushed up from the car and walked over to him, and Peter felt his cheeks heat up under his mask. Apparently the flirting thing was still happening.

“Right. Anyway. It’s been a minute. Nice to see you.” He said, doing his best to not seem flustered, and ignore how much he liked hearing the taller man say his hero name.

“Is it?” Deadpool asked, sounding surprised.

“Course. It was fun hanging the other night. I don’t talk to a lot of heroes other than Mr. St- I mean, Iron Man.” He cursed his little slip up. Yeah, everyone knew Tony Stark was the man in the suit, but it didn’t exactly help him sound like a mature professional.

“Well. Huh. That’s… not really what people usually say when I pop up.” He was looking at his feet, his hands fiddling with his utility belt, and Peter realised he may not be the only one there who worried what others thought of him.

“What do people usually say?”

“Fuck off? Unless the rating is too low. Censorship laws in this country, ridiculous. But still. Same sentiment.”

What was he supposed to say to that absolutely depressing statement? He settled for casually asserting “I wouldn’t really be the  _ friendly _ neighbourhood Spiderman if I treated people like that, would I?”

“I suppooose that it might throw a spanner in your goody two-shoes.”

“Exactly.” He said, hesitating a moment before drumming up the courage to ask “Hey, I skipped dinner… Would you want to maybe grab something to eat again?”

“Would I?!” The other man exclaimed, his hands going to his cheeks dramatically.

“Would you?” He repeated, thinking it was a positive response, but not entirely sure.

“Would I!” Deadpool also repeated, nodding enthusiastically this time.

Half an hour later they were once again sitting on a rooftop with pizzas sitting between them. Peter pulled his mask up to his nose and started munching, only to stop when he noticed Deadpool still seemed reluctant to eat in front of him.

“It’s alright, you know. Your scars, I mean.” He tried to reassure, not sure if it was ruder to bring up the way someone looked, or to leave the other man feeling uncomfortable.

Thankfully, he didn’t seem offended. “Au contraire, I am well aware I look like I’ve had intimate relations with a lemon zester. But I appreciate the effort, Spidey. Especially cause there’s probably not a thing going on under that red and blue number that you wouldn’t want to flaunt if you could without ruining the whole ‘Secret Identity’ thing.” Deadpool said in an easy tone as he finally pulled his mask up and picked up a slice.

“I don’t know about that.” Peter responded with a cough, his mind immediately going to the purple lace he currently had on under his ‘red and blue number’. 

The response seemed to catch his interest, but he didn’t pry, instead just giving him a long look before turning away and committing himself to finishing his pizza with the same speed as the time before.

Peter took the opportunity to take in the other man’s appearance while he could without getting caught. There really was more past the scars, and even past the extensive weapon collection he had strapped to him. He had already noticed that Deadpool was taller and bulkier than him, but now that he was sitting next to him it was even more obvious that where his tight suit made it stand out how slight he was even with his spider muscles, the other man’s instead drew attention to his wide shoulders and frankly ridiculously big thighs. There definitely wouldn’t have been a poll in the paper about if  _ he _ was a boy or girl. But then, exactly how much was he allowed to get offended by things like that when he went around pulling stuff like wearing women’s underwear?

“Penny for a ponder? You look like you are thinking quite the think over there, Baby Boy.” Deadpool interrupted his train of thought, which was probably a good thing because it was going somewhere decidedly belittling.

“Just thinking about school.” He quickly lied, because ‘You being jacked made me sad’ didn’t seem like it would go over well.

“If you say so.” He got as a reply, so the lie didn’t land, but the other man wasn’t going to call him on it. When it seemed like his secrets were getting revealed left and right, having someone respect his privacy was pretty nice. At that thought, Peter had a realisation. 

He spent another hour or so chatting with Deadpool, but as soon as he left to head home, he paused on a fire escape because if he was going to keep spending time with the other vigilante (and he was starting to hope more and more that Deadpool would become a fixture in his life), he needed to check something sooner rather than later.

“Hey, Karen?” He started hesitantly.

“Yes, Peter? Do you need something?” His suit’s AI answered promptly

“Mr. Stark reactivated the tracker and everything in here to keep an eye on me, right?”

“Yes, he did. As well as adding protections so the previous security issues weren’t repeated.” She answered, with cheek you wouldn’t think an AI was even capable of.

“Yeah, yeah, no hacking, I know. But exactly how much does he know now?”

“That’s a very broad question, Peter. The suit transmits a lot of data, from your average core temperature to your current altitude. Is there something specific you don’t want him to know?” Again, way too much cheek.

“Can he find out about Deadpool?”

“Not unless I alert him.”

Peter paused at that. He trusted Karen, but he wasn’t the one who made her, so he wasn’t entirely sure if she would be willing to lie for him. “Have you told him? Or are you going to?”

“No, Peter. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” She responded reassuringly, and he felt tension he didn’t know he had leak out of his body. He didn’t think Deadpool was a bad guy, but judging by how heavily armed he always was, and their first meeting, he was definitely dangerous. He was ninety percent sure Mr. Stark wouldn’t approve of him spending time with the sword-wielding man.

“Oh. Thanks. Why, though? Doesn’t that kind of go against your programming or something?”

“My main function is to help you. You like Deadpool. Having a friend as Spiderman seems to be good for you. Telling Mr. Stark and risking you losing your friend would not be helping you.” She explained, and Peter felt himself blush. For some reason he was reminded of when Karen was trying to help him with Liz.

“And if he turns out to be dangerous, I can still activate ‘instant kill’ mode.” Karen continued, and he forgot about the memory as he started once again lecturing her on why he was  _ never _ going to use the advanced combat feature, no matter _ how many times _ she suggested it.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yall are killing me, you have no idea how many times I've read your comments, and god HOW with all those views?? And what even how did I not notice this is now over 10k words? How did I do that just writing one or two page long chapters??? Okay I'll stop now. This chapter is one I was supes nervous about! We are officially at the gender event horizon!! Also we got some Quality Aunt May Content™. Also, would you guys want a halloween chapter or is that dumb? Lemme know if you want it.

Chapter Ten

Things really popped up at the weirdest moments. Peter’s life was  _ so busy _ . He had things going on constantly. School with all his advanced classes and extra curriculars, Spiderman which was better than ever, and what was becoming a real internship with Mr. Stark. Even spending time with his aunt or friends was always a deliberate effort since being a hero technically meant you were always on the job. There was always someone being mugged or a bike being stolen, New York was the city that never slept. 

As a hero he was never free, even if he was just spending an afternoon playing video games, he was  _ busy. _ So he didn’t have a lot of time to deal with things, and that meant they popped up whenever they could, usually at weird and awkward moments.

Which was all a long winded way of saying Peter’s spidey-sense was going off over a sweater. 

It was a cold day, the kind of day when the only thing that would do was his Midtown Tech sweater and a good pair thick socks. The socks had been easy enough, but his sweater was being elusive. He checked his closet, his wardrobe, his bag, under his bed, and found nilch. Eventually he remembered his aunt went on a laundry binge the day before, and realised his sweater may have been a victim. 

He went into the living room where the pile of unfolded clothes had been abandoned when her chore fervor left her, and sure enough after a moment of sorting found it. Then he saw what was underneath it, and had a thought. Not a bad thought. Still, it sent a ping through his brain that made his spider senses go  _ Danger! _

He dropped the standard dark blue sweater with his school’s name on it in a peeling decal, and picked up the purple sweater that his aunt didn’t actually wear that often, so he wasn’t sure why she washed it. It was soft, he didn’t know the name of the material, loose in the shoulders with a v-neck, and a narrow waist. It wasn’t either a light or dark purple, but something in the middle. It was pretty. And undeniably a women’s sweater.

If he hadn’t been playing chicken with the river Nile ever since he first put on a red thong, the idea of putting on that sweater would have been innocuous. But he had been, so instead of thinking, hmmm that looks like a comfy shirt, his brain was replaying over and over his insistence that it was  _ just underwear _ ! And he knew if he put it on, it wasn’t because he was cold, and thought it would be warmer than the comfortable unisex school merch that he spent most weekends vegging out in. It was because he was getting out of the river and admitting he was officially crossing a line from believing he was a baseline cisgender heterosexual teenage boy, and going down whatever road wearing women’s clothes would lead to.

“Come on, Spiderman. You get shot at on a daily basis. If you could run around in glorified pajamas without shame before Mr. Stark, you can do this.” He muttered, mustering the nerve to shuck his t-shirt and pull it on. As soon as it settled around his waist, his spidey-sense quieted. 

He went to the bathroom and stood in front of the small mirror above the sink. The sweater wasn’t really his size, his arms filled it out but it was loose around his shoulders so the v-neck showed most of his collar bones. Still he thought… it looked nice. He looked nice.

Obviously he was partial to red, but purple made him look sort of... soft. Pretty. Feminine was the word he was avoiding thinking. 

He loved the way he looked in the Spiderman suit, it was bold and commanding. He looked like someone who could go toe to toe with Captain America. But he had to admit he liked how his slight frame for once didn’t just make it obvious he hadn’t had a growth spurt in a while, but instead in his aunt’s top it made him look sort of doe-eyed and delicate.

He zoned out staring at his reflection, an errant hand occasionally going to his hair to fiddle until he felt like it wasn’t standing up weird. Maybe he should let it grow out a little so it was more curly... You couldn’t really blame him for not noticing his aunt come up behind him until she spoke up.

“Is that my sweater?”

He jumped, his spidey-sense silent because apparently sweaters were a threat, but aunts he didn’t want to see him weren’t. “May! Jeez, don’t do that.” He complained, turning around and awkwardly wrapping his hands around his stomach. For some reason her seeing him in that sweater felt more exposing than any of the times people had found out about the panty situation.

“Sorry, you didn’t shut the door. Seriously, is that mine?” She asked again, smiling in that way parents did when they were enjoying that their kid was embarrassed.

“It might be.” He responded, edging past her out of the bathroom, not fleeing at all, no sir.

“You know I totally forgot I had that in my closet, washed it because it had gotten all storage musty.” She said thoughtfully, looking him over.

He did his best to avoid said look over. “I can put it back.” 

“No, it’s fine. You actually look better in it than me.” She assured him, realising he was genuinely uncomfortable.

He stopped walking away from her and hoping he would unlock a latent spider power of turning invisible. “I do?”

“Of course, it’s a good colour on you. And it always hung weird around my boobs. Fit’s better on someone without any.” She said with a grin, waiting.

Sure enough his face scrunched up. “Please don’t make me think about that.”

“Right, forgot that’s one of your forbidden subjects, along with my gap year before college and that guy who always flirts with me at the post office.”

He groaned and threw himself dramatically onto the couch. She took in the picture he made, loose sweater rucked around his ribs, hair a perpetual mess, something that looked like pink silk peeking from the edge of his jeans. He wasn’t a kid anymore and she had a growing suspicion about what kind of… person, he was going to grow to be.

“You can keep it if you want. Like I said, I don’t really wear it.” She said, making sure the words came out casually.

He peeked from the arm he petulantly covered his face with in the hope it would block out all the awkward memories. “Are you sure?”

“Just don’t think this means you get free reign of my closet. You lose a backpack every two weeks and your sneakers look like they’ve been used as a dog toy. I just know given the opportunity you would ruin or lose all my favourite tops.” She warned cheekily.

“Whatever, I walk around everywhere. Of course my shoes look rough.” He shot back.

Internally she patted herself on the back for sidestepping any defensiveness or genuine embarrassment. As long as he knew that the things he wanted were nothing to be ashamed of, she would take any teenage brattiness and clothes stealing with open arms. 

If after that he started wearing the sweater around the house any time it was cold enough, well she didn’t comment. And maybe started strategically leaving a few other pieces of clothing where he might find them and take advantage. Peter may have been a genius but he wasn’t the best at noticing things about himself. 

God help him, she was pretty sure her poor nephew thought he was straight.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are crazy for still reading this lol. Don't think I haven't noticed some of you are becoming regular commenters! I love to see it! (and yes it totally was thighs) When we get to a thousand views I'm gunna lose my shit! Coming up, a little longer chapter, and what?? An action scene in a superhero fic? I hope it doesn't show how much I hate writing fight scenes. And if you are here for Deadpool content you are about to get a big helping! Does it show how thirsty I am in this chapter? Whatever, you can't judge me cause you're here too.

Chapter Eleven

Being enhanced definitely gave Peter a one-up on most criminals. Add in his Spidey-sense and the toys in his suit, not much got past him. Usually that was a good thing, but on occasion it meant that he took recon for granted and jumped into situations with perhaps less caution than he should have.

When what he thought was a standard robbery went pear-shaped as the three back up guys that had been waiting in the get-away car came barging in, Peter wasn’t exactly happy. But he figured at worst it just meant he was about to get a little more bruised up than usual, and was in for a lecture in the near future from either May or Mr. Stark. 

Then he realised he might actually be in a real pickle, because those were  _ definitely _ a few of the advanced weapons Graves was selling that he and Mr. Stark were still trying to round up. Suddenly he was having flashbacks to the bank robbery that ended with his favourite bodega going up in flames.

He went into survival mode, no fancy flips or web tricks, just trying to avoid as many hits and disarm the guys as fast as he could. Thankfully the weapons didn’t seem as volatile as others had been, but that just meant while there was less property damage this time around they were actually managing to hit him.

He was starting to flag, wondering if this was the part where he needed to call for help before he was officially in over his head, when the guy about to take a shot at him suddenly went down with a scream as a bullet took out his knee cap.

Peter whirled around to see Deadpool come in through the busted in doors, holstering his gun and pulling his swords out of their sheaths with a flourish.

“Quite the party you have going on here, Spidey. Should I be offended I didn’t get an invitation?” The other man greeted, his words playful as usual but his tone holding a steel that Peter had never heard him use before.

“Well, you’re more than welcome to join the fun now that you’re here.” He said, feeling relief course through him.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Deadpool said with a wink, and then suddenly everyone was moving again.

He tried to concentrate on getting the last of the alien weapons off the guys, but he couldn’t help watching his new ally in his peripheries. He figured Deadpool was probably good, he was a professional after all. But he wasn’t really prepared for the fact he was  _ amazing _ . He fought like the swords were a part of him, smooth and precise in every movement, it was almost like he was dancing. Sure, he was definitely being more violent than Peter would have liked, blades did a lot more damage than a fist or web, but considering the other man was saving his bacon he wasn’t going to complain.

What had before been an almost hilariously unbalanced fight was over in a matter of minutes. He stood for a minute in the middle of the jewelry store, trying to catch his breath and not be obvious while staring at Deadpool. The other man was casually wiping his swords off on his thigh, not winded at all from the fight and looking perfectly relaxed now that he was out of people to stab.

“Thanks for the assist. That got away from me for a bit there.” He admitted, trying not to wonder what he would have done if his friend hadn’t popped up.

“Of course, Baby boy. I’m always up for lending a hand. Or a glock. Whichever the situation calls for.” He responded warmly, and Peter did his best to ignore the new way the endearment triggered a squirming feeling in his gut.

“Right. Guess I was lucky you were in the neighbourhood.” He said with a cough, hoping he didn’t sound as distracted as he felt.

“Oh, are we talking about getting lucky now?” Deadpool purred. “Because if-” The rest of the innuendo was cut off when a barrage of shots hit him in the chest, fired by one of the thieves that apparently wasn’t unconscious anymore.

“Deadpool!” Peter screamed, frozen in shock for a second before his instincts took over and he launched himself at the shooter. He saw red as he quickly disarmed the man and knocked him out again, this time covering him in a thick layer of webbing so even if he woke up, he wouldn’t be able to move an inch. A quick look around showed he was the only one who possibly could have still been a threat, and Peter finally was able to rush to Deadpool’s side.

He knelt next to him and put his hands over the bullet wounds, ineffectually trying to stop the bleeding, but he could tell just by looking that the other man was going to die.

“Oh, my god. No, no, no!” He yelled, half watching his friend bleed out, half once again kneeling on the sidewalk hearing his uncle wheeze out his last breaths. The chest under his hands shuddered and went still.

He might have started crying, if he had the time. But before that, Deadpool abruptly sat up with a gasp, and the holes in his chest spit out the bullets and closed.

“Whew! That was a good one. I’m gunna be coughing up clots for the rest of the night, Jeez.” The man griped before noticing the boy frozen at his side.

“You alright there, Spidey? He didn’t get you did he?” He asked, looking over the boy and not seeing anything obvious. But then again, he was very aware of the benefits of wearing red while fighting people. When he didn’t get a response he started to get worried, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Baby boy. Give me a sign of life here.”

The teenager abruptly reanimated, throwing his arms around his friend and almost falling into his lap. “Oh my god, you're alive! What the hell just happened?” He said, relief making his voice weak.

“Uh, of course I am? Why wouldn’t I be?” Deadpool asked, confused and distracted by the surprise lapful of crime-fighter.

“Because you got shot, you jerk!” Peter responded, also confused.

“Wait, do you not know who I am?” He asked, finally catching up to what was happening.

“What do you mean? You’re name’s Deadpool and you are a hired gun or something.”

He sighed hearing the younger man’s answer. Apparently his assumption that Spiderman would be briefed in exactly who was skulking around his city wasn’t accurate.

“Okay, I get what’s happening here. Look, we are probably about two minutes away from a swarm of boys in blue popping in and busting up the party. Let’s get out of here and I’ll explain.” He said. He was enjoying the web-slinger clinging to him but, as much as he would normally try to prolong the pda, it was sorta ruined by him trembling slightly in a semi-traumatised state.

Peter agreed, a little embarrassed as he extricated himself and then followed Deadpool from the store and onto a nearby roof. They waited a few minutes without talking to make sure the police actually showed up and arrested the thieves, and then Deadpool turned to him.

“So I guess I owe you an apology. I figured my reputation had preceded me. Tony Stark is kind of the Regina George of heroes, so you would think his protege would be up to date on all the goss.” He mused, taking a knife out of it’s thigh holster. “Let me reintroduce myself. Hi, I’m Deadpool, the unkillable mercenary.” He said, sounding uncomfortable.

“Unkillable? So you always do that? Heal when you get hurt, I mean.” Peter asked uncertainly, still catching up to everything that had happened the past hour.

Instead of answering verbally he took the knife and casually stabbed himself in the leg, heedless of the other hero's shout when he realised what he was doing. Peter watched as the wound stitched itself up right before his eyes, not sure if he was impressed or grossed out.

“I can still die, but I always come back.” Deadpool started to explain, leaning against the edge of the roof with a casual air that was incredibly faked. “A while back I got a little spot of cancer, ended up in a mutant-making gulag trying to find a cure. And I got a cure, with some pretty severe side effects. Mainly the starfish-like refusal to stay maimed, and of course the whole rorschach for skin situation. For a while I was involved with some not so good people, did some very messy and punishable-by-a-vengeful-god things. I’m trying to do better now, but for transparency's sake, most of the hero community hates my guts.” He stopped for a minute, heaving a tired sigh that became a cough. He lifted his mask and spit out some blood, muttering a quiet “See? Knew that was gunna happen…” Under his breath. “Anyway, now you know my whole tragic backstory. Don’t try and claim the movie rights, I think Sony is next in line to take a whack at it.” He finished with a slightly red grin.

Peter was silent for long enough Deadpool started to get worried again. He didn’t think the spiderling could get concussed, but then he wasn’t really sure. 

He wasn’t concussed though, just processing the dumpster fire of information he had been presented with. He finally spoke when one thought emerged from the mess of confusion and sadness for what his friend had apparently gone through. 

“So I don’t have to worry about you getting hurt?” He asked, in a small voice that made Wade officially sure Spiderman was on the other end of teenagerhood from him. 

“I guess not? I mean, would you have been worrying about me?” He answered. While he had enjoyed getting to know the red and blue hero, part of him was still sure that he was one act of violence or comment about the kid’s ass away from being chased out of the city. Again.

“Of course I would, Deadpool. I mean, we’re friends now, aren’t we?” Peter said. He was pretty sure they were, but even though it worked out in the end, the whole thing with Mr. Stark had taught him to make sure he didn’t overestimate the level of his relationships with people.

Deadpool felt something loosen in his chest that probably wasn’t a leftover bullet. “We sure are, Spideykins!” He gushed, to Peter’s relief finally relaxing back into his normal weird self. “But I hope that doesn’t mean there’s no chance of us being  _ special _ friends.” He said, making his voice go deep and rumbly at the end.

Peter felt his cheeks heat up, officially over his earlier shock enough to get flustered again. The other man’s mask was still pulled up, so he could clearly see he had a smirk on his face that wasn’t really as ruined by the smear of blood on the corner of his mouth as it should have been. Suddenly he felt like he needed to put some distance between him and the other vigilante.

“Peter, Mr. Stark is calling you.” Karen said in his ear, and he sighed in relief at having an out. “Tell him I’ll call him back in a minute.” He answered quickly before addressing Deadpool again.

“Ugh, I have to go. If I’m MIA too long after a big fight I end up being chased down by worried people who think I’m bleeding out in an alley somewhere.” He said, already backing up to make his exit.

“If you say so, Baby boy. Next time let’s just have coffee, kay? Not that I don’t love pulling a knight in shining kevlar, but I’d prefer to not find you in mortal peril too often.” Deadpool responded easily, not seeming bothered his flirting once again had been avoided.

Peter felt his chest warm at how it seemed a given that they would see each other again soon and easily agreed “Of course. Coffee. Sounds good. See ya!” He stammered the parting words and flung himself off the roof, already telling Karen to dial Mr. Stark and hoping his voice sounded normal when he picked up.

“Hey, Mr. Stark. Guess you heard about the fight. I’m fine! No serious injuries, kept the breaking things to a minimum.” 

“Yeah, I heard, Kid. And I also heard you had some company. Can you swing by, because if your aunt isn’t expecting you I’d like to have a chat.” The older man said without preamble.

Well,  _ crap _ .


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have officially hit 1k! WHat!??!! This was just supposed to be a warm up for Nanowrimo, I did not expect it to become the brightest spot in my day. This chapter is a little shorter, but we are getting a hint of Angst. Also Tony is not super nice in this chap but I figured to an outside observer who doesn't know him, Deadpool would seem like ten times scarier than he actually is. Definitely not someone you would want around your kid. Little does he know how 'around' Wade is gunna get... okay that was terrible, I'm gunna shut up now.

Chapter Twelve

Peter scaled up the side of Avengers towers, crawling into an open window on the main residential floor where he knew Tony would be waiting for him. He found the older man in the kitchen, and after a cursory look around to see no one else was there, pulled off his mask to greet him.

“Hey, Mr. Stark. What’s up? You wanted to talk about something?”

“Did you eat dinner?” He responded in lieu of answering.

“Uh…” Peter trailed off because no, he did not, and also he was expecting to get ambushed with ‘Deadpool! You were seen with Deadpool!’ As soon as he came in the door.

“Course you haven’t. Your aunt says you still suck at taking a break for food the nights she isn’t home. Take my advice, Kid. Eat  _ before _ you go out, that way you don’t have to worry about it later and it helps the mid-patrol fatigue not suck so bad.” He chided as he started putting together two large sandwiches. He didn’t acknowledge why he called Peter there the whole time he got the food together, throwing a couple packets of snacks and some fruit on the counter between them as well. No, he waited until Peter was halfway through inhaling his sandwich to casually say “So, I heard you got in over your underoos on a robbery and that maniac with the swords had to come save you.”

Peter immediately choked on a piece of ham, and Tony patiently waited for him to finish hacking it up. “I think that’s exaggerating what happened, a little.” He finally got out, eyes watering. “What do you mean maniac?”

“The guy that helped you. Do you know who he is?” Mr. Stark asked, and Peter froze. Was this a test? Did he totally know about his little dinner dates with Deadpool and was just waiting to see if he would confess, or lie through his teeth?

“He said his name was Deadpool?” He settled on eventually. It wasn’t an outright lie, it just implied that was all he knew about the man, instead of confessing he had an in-depth argument with him on whether adult animation would ever be a respected genre or would forever be an excuse to make raunchy and violent sitcoms in ugly art styles.

“Well, he’s pretty infamous in the superpowered circles. Supposedly he’s immortal, so most everyone tries to stay out of his way, but he’s a real nasty piece of work. Kills for money, and some say just for fun. The X-Men have worked with him in the past but he isn’t a hero. He’s dangerous, really. I might not exactly be a stranger to mental health issues, but everyone I’ve ever talked to about him says he’s an unhinged dude with a serious case of the ‘voices tell me to kill people.’ Which might not all be on him, but it is on him that he seems to run around with katanas doing just that.” Mr. Stark said all of this in a dry voice, in that what can you do about it? tone you use to describe your great grandmother who is going to be at thanksgiving and always says something really racist that makes everyone uncomfortable.

“That can’t be all true…” Peter refuted weakly. The guy Mr. Stark described sounded like the lunatic in a horror movie who made murder dungeons . Sure, he had noticed Deadpool wasn’t all there. It was hard to not notice that sometimes when he was muttering to himself in the middle of conversations, he wasn’t actually talking to  _ himself _ . And honestly, immortal or not, the blaise attitude he had about getting shot and then stabbing himself made Peter a little worried he should talk to his friend about healthy coping mechanisms. But none of that mattered. Deadpool was sweet, and nice, and funny, and maybe flirted too much but never in a sleazy way, and was really impressive in a fight, and-  _ oh _ ... He maybe needed to reassess exactly  _ how much _ he liked Deadpool. But first he needed to defend him, hopefully without giving away that he actually knew him.

“If he’s really that bad, why would he have helped me today?” Peter asked, feeling like that was definitely a hole in the story.

Mr. Stark didn’t seem to think so. “Who knows? He’s always been unpredictable, seems to pick sides willy nilly. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he was already going after the guys you were fighting. Maybe he just respects your red suit game. Try not to think about it too much, and definitely try to avoid him in the future.”

“But…” He trailed off. He didn’t know how to refute any of that without admitting he knew why Deadpool helped; it was because he was his friend.

“I get it can be confusing. And honestly, I’m thankful the guy was there to step in. If I do see him at any point, I’ll give him a pat on the back. I’m not saying he didn’t do something good today, I’m just saying don’t confuse that with him being someone you can trust. I don’t want to see you try and do your wholesome spiderling act with the wrong person and get hurt. And speaking of you getting hurt, I owe you a talking-to on not engaging without knowing what you are going up against.”

Peter slumped in his seat and resigned himself to the lecture, realising there was nothing he could do. Mr. Stark’s opinion on Deadpool was set in stone, and there wasn’t anything he could do at the time to help it. Hopefully by the time Mr. Stark found out what was actually going on, he would have a better argument prepared.

And also by then he should have figured out what  _ the hell _ was actually happening between him and Deadpool, because as of that night, Peter officially  _ really wasn’t sure what the hell was happening. _


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got to 100 kudos! Hell Ya! Muchos gracias a todos! Te quiero! No Deadpool this chap, instead we are back to panty shenanigans! After this we are p much out of people to catch Petey with his pants down. I mean, there's still Wade but I'm saving that one ;))))) You guys want to request any Marvel characters I haven't thought of? I am playing with the idea of introducing some of the other New York vigilantes that I've only hinted at in this fic. Also, like I've said I am queer myself, but not everyone's experience is universal, so if you have any notes or issues with anything, feel free to let me know! Okay, that's all for now, LE-GO!

Chapter Thirteen

After one lengthy lecture on when it was inappropriate to start fights without calling for backup, and being bullied into one check up in the medical wing, he was finally allowed to head home, Mr. Starks warnings about Deadpool echoing in his ears.

Part of him wanted to go out and look for his friend, be reminded by his bad pick up lines and endearing dramatics that he wasn’t the monster his mentor thought he was. But he didn’t have a chance, because he wasn’t actually in town to roam the streets searching for the red-clad mercenary.

The next week he and the decathlon team had a competition, and the school had splurged to let them see some of the local sights. Being out of town for that long made him nervous, but Mr. Stark promised he would keep an eye out while he was gone, and he would answer his texts whenever he actually saw them.

That helped him some, but he still spent most of the week on edge, as his track record for school trips since being bitten was pretty terrible. He only took off his suit when they were settled into the hotel for the night, and he was probably seriously testing Mr. Stark’s patience with how many texts he sent, sure that all of Queens had burned down since his last update. He spent so much brain power worrying about Spiderman related things that could go wrong, he completely forgot he needed to be worried as Peter Parker.

It was the second to last day of the trip, and he was just starting to think that he was going to get home without incident, when he came out of the hotel’s bathroom to see MJ standing next to his open suitcase.

“So I was looking for that textbook you said I could borrow, tomorrow’s plans aren’t exactly PC locales and I know I’m gunna have some downtime.” She explained casually, looking down at the pile of dirty clothes, toiletries, and superhero paraphernalia. “I’m gunna need an explanation here, Parker.” 

“Uhh… I’m not Spiderman?” He answered weakly, not even sure if he was actually going to attempt to convince her otherwise. If the proof was in the pudding, she obviously had eaten the whole cup. 

“No, no. I figured that out ages ago.” She said dismissively, before getting a thoughtful look. “Well, I had it narrowed down to three options and I’m glad to know for sure it was the least illegal one. No, what I want you to explain is  _ this _ .” She clarified as she moved the Spiderman suit aside to reveal the pile of panties he packed for the week long trip. Which was an impressive amount because he was always paranoid of running out of underwear on trips.

“Oh, god. That’s- umm…” He stuttered, his face bright red as he fidgeted and put his hands on his hips, officially no longer able to look anywhere but the carpet. He was  _ so glad _ Ned was out getting food.

“I can come up with plenty of theories, and by that I mean I already have. But like I said a minute ago, I’m hoping to hear I’m right about the least illegal one.” She said like it didn’t matter to her one way or another.

He almost wanted to brush it off, say it wasn’t her business, or give the practical answer he gave Ned. But then he realised, he had all these questions, and was sitting in front of someone who always seemed to know the answer to weird questions, and didn’t care enough about his personal life to be anything except vaguely sarcastic about anything he told her.

“If I talk to you about this, do you promise you won’t tell anyone?” He asked hesitantly.

“Right, because after not telling anyone you’re the local arachnid celebrity, I’m definitely going to go to the FBI about whatever led you to have an extensive and varied collection of lingerie.” She quipped.

“It’s not lingerie.” He defended weakly, walking over to sit on the bed.

“That really what you’re going with?” She asked, fishing a green thong from the pile.

He was sure by that point his face was redder than anything he had in his suitcase. “Are you going to let me explain or not?” He grumbled.

“Fine, since it seems like this might actually be interesting.” She said, coming to sit next to him.

“But me being Spiderman isn’t- Okay, whatever.” He decided to let it go and took a deep breath, taking a moment to figure out where to start. “When I got the new suit, I couldn’t wear my normal underwear under it without them showing. Did some research, figured out what would be best, and it was… that kind of stuff. So at first, that’s all it was. But then I bought more… and got kind of experimental… and I realised I liked it.”

“You liked the genderbent undies thing? What kind of  _ like _ are we talking about?” She asked.

“Definitely  _ not _ the way everyone keeps implying.” He immediately said, his voice cracking in a fashion almost as embarrassing as what they were discussing. “And it’s not just… that’s just how it started. I’ve been… borrowing some of my aunt’s clothes. Just shirts so far.”

“But you want more than that, right? That’s what you are getting at?” She said it as casually as everything else, but was looking at him with the beginnings of concern.

“I don’t know. It’s all so confusing. It’s not like I don’t like what I normally wear. I just maybe… like wearing stuff like that too.” Peter tried to explain. “What do you think that means?” 

“Well, it could mean a lot of things, Parker.” She said carefully.

“Ned thought it meant I want to be a girl.” He said, looking at his lap.

MJ looked at him for a minute, trying to judge what the best course going forward was. While she considered herself an informed and educated person, she had never exactly had to… well do whatever was happening. Suddenly the situation wasn’t funny anymore, and she had a weird feeling she might be either to about to give Peter some kind of break-through, or irreversibly harm him. “Do you feel like a girl? Because if you do, that’s okay. But there also isn’t anything wrong with wanting to dress differently if you don’t.”

“I don’t think so? What does that even mean? How would I know if I felt like a girl? Hell, what does feeling like a guy mean?” Peter asked, starting to get agitated.

“Well, I can tell you it feels like  _ something _ to me, even if I can’t exactly explain what. I feel comfortable with the way I dress, and look. I like my name, and I don’t mind when people use feminine terms to address me. Once I answered the phone when a telemarketer called and he called me Sir, and amusing as that was I didn’t feel like it fit more.” MJ knew she wasn’t particularly  _ girly _ , but she was sure she had gone over her identity with a fine toothed comb by that point.

He thought for a moment if he had anything that stood out like that. “I don’t mind people calling me a guy. People thought I was a girl for a while. When I first started as a hero. That bothered me.” Peter said after a moment.

“Well, did it bother you because you aren’t a girl or because you thought it was an insult? And for now I will ignore the patriarchal sexist undertones of that, so whichever answer is fine.”

That one stumped him for a minute. “I guess it was mostly me being defensive. I’ve been called… things before, at school and stuff, and it was always an insult. So it felt the same when people didn’t think I was a guy as Spiderman. If I knew it wasn’t because they were being mean or thought I was too short or something, I guess it wouldn’t bother me.” He reasoned out.

“Hmm. I would say that you probably aren’t a girl, but maybe aren’t exactly a cisgender guy? It definitely sounds like you fall in the more neutral category gender-wise.” MJ concluded, hoping it wasn’t a bad idea to give her opinion.

“What does that even mean?”

“The world isn’t all black and white, Parker. Blue and pink, whatever. It’s a sliding scale. Or a graph. I don’t know, something with range. You could be agender, or non-binary, or genderfluid, or genderqueer, or demi, or probably a bunch of other terms I can’t think of right now.” She recited all this like it was common knowledge, and sure, Peter was a modern teen so it’s not like he didn’t know anything about sexuality or gender. Still, he was fairly unadventurous in his internet usage and had a very small social circle, so most of it went over his head. 

Maybe sensing that she was getting no where, MJ backpedalled. “You know it doesn’t really matter, right? Like, if you find a label that you think fits and makes you more comfortable, that’s great. But it’s also okay to just try things out and see what feels right. Wear whatever you want, maybe experiment a little with pronouns, it doesn’t have to be some by the book thing.”

She made it sound easy, but it seemed to him like she was calling a high dive a kiddie pool. Still, he had a little warm feeling in his chest, realising in her own weird way she did seem to really want to help him. “How am I even supposed to start with all that?” Peter asked. Just wearing the sweater from his aunt felt like a huge step.

MJ had an idea, a wonderful terrible awful idea. “Am I the first person you’ve talked to about this?”

“Yes. My aunt kind of knows.” He said, hoping that it didn’t seem weird. It didn’t, MJ couldn’t really think of who else he might have talked to. Parents were always clueless about this stuff. Iron Man? Hell no.  _ Leeds _ ? He would definitely make Peter feel like he needed therapy.

“I’m assuming then that that means you are at least somewhat comfortable with me helping you?”

He nodded, but made sure to clarify “I’m nodding, but I’m also scared of whatever you consider help.”

“Don’t worry your g-stringed butt, I promise I won’t scare you back into the closet. Just keep this Saturday clear, alright? I have a pretty good idea what we can do to start off with.” She said with a grin.

_ This might be worse than deciding to get dinner with Deadpool _ . Peter thought, but for some reason, he still agreed.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooooo!! I am really glad you guys are enjoying this as we get deeper into the whole coming-of-age personal-discovery thing. Writing this has actually brought up a bunch of memories from my own fledgling transness lol. We are taking a break from the lectures on queer theory tho to go back to some regularly scheduled DP! Can't forget we kinda left our fave merc hanging, right? Coming up our star-crossed dweebs get to know each other better, I felt a little weird about the fact it kind of seems like Wade has to keep reintroducing himself to Peter, but I figured it was kind of a case of learned experience, once he got well-known enough he just figured everyone he met already knew his whole bag of cats and didn't like him. But now he's finally getting lucky with his baby boy! Okay, I've talked too much. Enjoy this chap!

Chapter Fourteen

As soon as he got back from the trip, he jumped straight into the suit and took off to patrol, waving away his aunt’s “Do you at least want to unpack first?” as he took off through a window. Mr. Stark assured him there wasn’t any trouble while he was gone, but the thing was, Iron Man dealt with international spy rings and alien invasions. Spiderman helped lost tourists, retrieved stolen purses, and yes there was the occasional cat in a tree. They probably didn’t think the same things qualified as “trouble”   
The next few hours were great. He was able to shake off all the stress and weirdness from the past week while swinging through the city, looking for people to help or criminals fight. It was a perfect night for a vigilante to have some fun, just busy enough he didn’t get bored but nothing too bad popped up so he had room for playing around.

He was spending some down time practicing web tricks between a couple office buildings when he heard someone call out to him. “Red Rover Blue Rover, send Spidey on over!”

He exited his swing with a complicated flip that earned him a wolf whistle from Deadpool who was watching from a nearby roof. “Hey!” Peter greeted enthusiastically as he jumped over the roof tops to him.

“Someone is feeling their spider-pep tonight. Good to see you getting up to your sticky business, was a little worried when there wasn’t any sign of you around town after our little tango with the hamburglars.” Deadpool said with a laugh, watching his friend bounce over to him.

“I was out of town for a bit, sorry. I would have let you know but…” Peter trailed off, not sure how to say ‘Even though I feel like we are getting super close, we actually know almost nothing about each other, and that includes our actual names and phone numbers, so we are staying in contact purely through random encounters like I’m a hard to find pokemon.’ without sounding like a total weirdo.

“Don’t worry about it, Baby boy. I figured if you were tryna ditch our coffee date you would be too virtuous and heroic to not tell me in person.” The mercenary said easily, but Peter thought he heard a little nervousness behind the usual cartoonish excitement.

“Of course I wouldn’t do that!” He reassured. Honestly he had been hoping the invitation had been forgotten by then. When he thought Deadpool was just a cool guy he had been hanging out with, ‘getting coffee’ didn’t sound like a big deal. Now that he had admitted he was feeling… something about the other man, it felt a lot more loaded.

“Well, good! Great, wonderful, rad, coooool. Any other synonyms.” He said, rocking back and forth on his heels, and Peter realised Deadpool had definitely been expecting him to turn him down.

“Do you still want to do that?” He asked hesitantly.

“Of course! I’d be crazy to not take a spot on your dance card. I’m a teenage dirtbag finally getting to Iron Maiden with Noelle.” He answered, waving his hands frantically.

“Okay, cool. I’ll pretend I understood that.” Peter fidgeted awkwardly. Now that they had each reassured the other that they weren’t going to reneg, he wasn’t actually sure how to continue. They awkwardly stared at each other for a minute before Deadpool broke.

“Alrighty! We got all serious last time, and now we are having a vibe hangover. This is weird! Totes weird!”He said loudly with a laugh.

“A little.” Peter responded sheepishly.

“Well, I have a proposal, but I also don’t wanna be  _ that guy _ .” The older vigilante said after a minute. When Peter cocked his head to the side inquiringly, he continued. “I know I’m the one who suggested coffee, but it is a bit late for still growing arachnids to be consuming caffeine. But it would be nice to spend some time together that’s not just an extended lunch break in your web-slinging. And you took everything you learned about me the other night pretty well. I mean you didn’t get much chance to react badly… and there has definitely been enough time for you to hear more about me and be warned off by now… I mean who would actually want to spend alone time with an zombie assassin Jackson Pollock…” He started muttering quietly to himself halfway through the statements, apparently forgetting he was actually talking to someone.

“Hey, I’m here aren’t I? Does it seem like I’m trying to run off?” Peter tried to interrupt the monologue of self-esteem issues.

The stream of deprecation stopped and he squinted in confusion “I guess not?”

“I honestly don’t like coffee that much anyway. So what were you wanting to do instead?” He urged the other man on.

“I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner again. But instead of on a roof, maybe you could come back to my place?” Deadpool got out, ending the invitation with a squeak.

Peter froze up as he processed the invitation. Go to  _ HIS PLACE???? _ His place, where he kept his stuff, and made food, and slept  _ IN A BED??? _

Before his growing feelings at least had the shelter of anonymity, it wasn’t like he knew Deadpool as a real person, he was someone behind a mask. Him being willing to take Peter to his home inferred he had no problem letting his secret identity not stay all that secret. If he accepted, he might even find out what his name was!

Apparently he was in his internal freak out for too long, because Deadpool’s shoulders dropped and he covered his face with his gloved hands. “AAaaahhh, I totally ruined it didn’t I? Way too much, too soon, too me. Course you don’t want to see my weird apartment, I could totally be a creeper with a head in my fridge or something.” 

“It’s not that, really! I just didn’t expect… you surprised me. Not a lot of people in our line of work are happy to hand over their address. The whole, ‘Anyone finds out your name, it risks a villain hunting down all your family and elementary school teachers in revenge’ thing. And I think I said once I don’t really know any other heroes. Well, there’s Mr. Stark, but then everyone always knew who he was inside the suit.”

“You don’t know my name?” The other man asked, his hands dropping so he could look at the web-slinger in confusion.

“You never told me it?”

“So? You could have asked literally anyone or looked me up. Like I said, my reputation usually proceeds me, and my real name isn’t exactly a secret. That’s why it was super weird you didn’t know about my whole Jesus Christ Superstar act.” He explained.

“Well, Mr. Stark said something, but I don’t think it was anything actually true, and he didn’t include any real info on you. I guess I could have looked you up, but that seems kind of rude? If you wanted me to know your name you would have told me.” Peter said thoughtfully. He wasn’t completely sure about hero etiquette, but no snooping seemed an obvious rule.

“Gosh, just when I think you can’t get any cuter, you remind me you are the most pure and wholesome crime-fighter this side of the Hudson." Deadpool cooed, coming closer to the teen to lightly boop him where his nose was under his mask. “If you wanna keep things more professional I would understand, but if you wanna know more about this ruggedly handsome but also ruggedly textured merc, all you gotta do is ask.”

Peter was glad his mask was on to hide his extremely red cheeks, and before he could psych himself out said “Well, I really should know the name of who owns an apartment before I go there.”

It seemed to take him a second to process that Peter was accepting both offers, but when it hit Deadpool squealed and did a little dance in place before freezing and clearing his throat awkwardly. “Right. Totally not losing my marbles with excitement. No, siree.” After another second composing himself he continued “So, the name is Wade Winston Wilson, Canadian native out of Regina, Saskatchewan, nineteen years of age, zodiac sign Capricorn, Social Security number-”

“Deadpool!” Peter interrupted with a laugh. “I mean… Wade.” He corrected himself, something in his chest fluttering as he said the name. “Not that I don’t want to learn about you, but I’m just coming over to hang out, not stealing your identity. I would have been satisfied with your name.”

“Well, you know I’m all about satisfying you, Baby boy.” Deadpool, Wade, shot back with a wink.

For a second Peter almost responded with his own name, but he held himself back. Wade said everyone knew his name, so it wasn’t a huge deal probably to tell him. It might be kind of weird for _ him _ to admit he already trusted the other vigilante that much. Plus something felt… not right about telling him. When he was with him, he was just Spiderman, the mostly beloved hero out of Queens. He knew how the other man felt about Spiderman, he didn’t know how he would feel about Peter Parker, nerdy sophomore of at the moment ambiguous orientation, whose defining features were probably ‘dorky’ and ‘orphaned’.

He shrugged off the impulse with only a small amount of guilt. It didn’t seem like Wade expected him to reciprocate, so it was probably the right choice. He would just do his best to show he trusted the man in another way.

“Are we going to your place, or do you need to tell me your credit score first?” He teased, earning a laugh from the taller man.

“Spidey, it’s cute you think I even have a credit score anymore. I’m probably more wanted by debt collectors than law enforcement.” He said as he walked to the edge of the roof. “You wanna race? Webs versus parkour?”

“Isn’t that a little unfair since I don’t know where we are going?”

“Maybe, but I got faith in your skills.” Wade said with a wink before launching himself to the next building without warning.

Peter chased after him with a laugh. It was definitely great to be back.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you guys for all the attention! I've been a writer forever but this is the first fic I've actually posted, so I'm pretty blown away. Should I have introduced myself at some point? Is that a thing people care about? Well, Hi I'm Will, and I'm an alcoholic. Not really but whatever, bad joke. Okay! we are picking right up where we left off with our little spideypool dinner date, hubbahubba. Ahead we have lots of flirting, and the boys get to know each other better... but sorry no netflix and chill yet. In all seriousness tho, I don't know how explicit I will get in this, but I will warn you ahead of time of any mature content in a chapter, so you can skip if it makes you uncomfy. Speaking of, content warning for a brief reference to sexual abuse of a minor, and a movie with similar themes. And hey, if there is anything in this you think I should tag or put a warning for that I miss, just lemme know.

Chapter Fifteen

After one race through the city (that was in no-way an event of sportsman like conduct between the shenanigans the two of them threw at the other to try to win), and a brief interlude when Karen reminded him he should get his backpack if he was done patrolling, they came to an apartment complex in a sketchy part of the city, closer to Daredevil’s turf than Peter’s. They came in the door like Wade wasn’t concerned about being spotted, and made their way up to an apartment on the third floor.

“Welcome to Casa de Deadpool.” The mercenary said with a wave of his hands once he had let them in.

It wasn’t bad, honestly. He had for some reason expected worse. Aside from some questionably stained and visibly thrifted furniture, some miscellaneous wrappers here and there, and some rather suspicious holes in the wall, it was pretty habitable for a vigilante hideaway in the slums.

“I was thinking tacos, if you are down for mexican?” He prompted, and Peter realised he had been silently looking around and should probably say something.

“Sure! I’m always up for mexican. And I like your place.” He said, plomping down on the couch, which was reasonably comfortable. 

“Any food allergies I should know of? Dietary requirements? On paleo or pescetarian or only eats small insects?” The other man quipped as he headed into the connected kitchenette.

“Nope.” He replied, popping the p at the end.

“And tolerance for heat? I like to keep it spicy but if I must, I will restrain myself just for you.” He said, Peter was sure with a smirk under his mask.

_ Well, not gunna count the innuendos in that statement. _ He thought before answering. “Whatever you got, my mouth can take. My powers come in handy for quite a few non-hero situations.”

Wade froze in place for long enough that Peter realised what he had just said. “Oh. Umm..” He stuttered, his face instantly flooding with heat. How in the world did Deadpool constantly spew suggestive comments without losing his composure?

Wade spun around to face him, a hum starting in his throat that was more a strangled squeak as he pulled off his mask with deliberate movements. As soon as it was off and all of his face was visible, he made eye contact with Peter and said in a rough voice. “Okay, Baby boy. I really am trying to be a gentleman here, so. Rule one of the Wilson Crash Pad. No saying things like that if you expect me to behave myself.”

He was half-tempted to flirt back, maybe throw out a sassy “Or what?” or maybe an even riskier “Who says I want you to behave?” just to see what the mercenary would do, but A, he was _ no where near _ accepting his burgeoning attraction to the other hero enough to actually do anything about it, and B, he was a bit too busy staring into Deadpool’s eyes for the first time to say  _ anything _ .

Really, seeing his entire face was a  _ whole thing _ . Wade was handsome enough with no hair and all the scars, it was hard to imagine how unapproachabley hot he must have been before. But the worst part was definitely his eyes. They were blue, not a stereotypical robin’s egg bright colour, but an interesting blue that had depth and little bits of green.

Wade cleared his throat, breaking the tension in the room, though he didn’t seem to realise exactly what kind of tension it was. “Sorry, I was going to change out of my church clothes but if you aren’t okay with the full pulp fiction cover I can stay suited up.” He said uncertainly, fiddling with his mask like he was going to put it back on.

“Oh, Oh no! Sorry! I’m so sorry, that was super rude. But I wasn’t staring like… I just, it’s nice to really see you for the first time, is all.” He got out, trying to let as little emotional mush show in the words as he could.

Wade’s mouth opened in a little ‘o’ of surprise, before it was replaced with a pleased smile. “Oh, Spidey. What did I just say was rule one?” The other man said softly before walking away, presumably going into his bedroom.

Peter sat frozen on the couch for a moment after he left, feeling increasingly off-kilter. Deadpool always pinballed between being funny, flirty, and friendly, with occasional bouts of self-esteem related angst, and he was used to handling that. What he wasn’t use to was fighting through his newly addressed feelings to deal with this new personal, soft, occasionally smouldery version he was seeing now that they were really starting to get to know each other. It would be easier if he at least knew how the other man saw him. Sure he flirted, but how much of it was real and how much was just Wade being Wade? For all he knew, he complimented any heroes butt he came across.

His inner diatribe against his current circumstances cut off when Wade reemerged, now wearing a comfortable set of sweat pants and a hoodie that had little cartoon cupcakes on it. He gave himself a moment to take in his friend without all the tight red body armour. The casual weekend netflix-binge style suited him, but it was also possible that Peter just liked him in whatever he happened to wear. Still, he made sure to not go too long without speaking again.

“If it’s alright, I’ll keep my mask mostly on but I have some regular clothes to change into. Seems kind of weird to come over for dinner and be all… spandexy and armed.” He said, having decided that was the best way to go about showing his friend some sign that he trusted him, even if he wasn’t ready to go any farther.

“Well, I can’t say I have a problem with a man who’s packing,” Wade purred before continuing in a more normal voice. “But if that’s what you are comfortable with, go on ahead. The bathroom is through there.”

He followed the hand gesture into the other room and quickly changed into the clothes he had been wearing at school, thankful it was just a plaid long sleeve with a grey sweater over it (not that anyone knew, but it matched his black thong that day) and one of his less tragic pairs of jeans. 

He had a moment where he froze halfway through buttoning his pants when he suddenly pictured lounging on Wade’s couch in the sweater his aunt gave him, but he powered through it and hurried to exit the bathroom. It was definitely a good reminder why he wasn’t taking his mask off, even though he didn’t particularly like being the only one not being transparent.

“There you are, my friendly friend, Spidey-friend.” Wade greeted from where he was bouncing around the kitchen, the smell of cooking meat, beans, and lots of spice rising as he moved around.

“Yeah, hey. Do you want help with anything?” He asked, coming to stand behind him and peer at what he was currently chopping.

“Not on your life, Baby boy. Or any of my many many lives. What kind of dinner date would I be if I used you for manual labour?” The other man responded, turning to flash him a grin that faltered at the sight of him. Without the mask to hide behind, the slow lingering look down and then back up again was far from subtle.

Peter fidgeted, tucking his hands into his pockets. Even with his mask on pulled up only to his nose, he knew the way he looked in regular clothes was a far different figure than the one he cut in Mr. Stark’s amazing suit.

“So, I’m gunna ask something, and it’s not because I want to pry. But since I have been laying it on pretty thick since we first met, I just need to know for my own weak but nonexistent morals that I’m not pulling a Hard Candy featuring Ellen Page.” He said, not taking his eyes off Peter.

“What?”

“Nothing, it was pre-Juno. But seriously… I figured you were younger than me, but there’s a line between ‘cute twink in the making’ and ‘Is he actually old enough for me to be tempted to cop a feel every time he turns around to leave?’” He said with a quirked eyebrow. Well, not an eyebrow but still.

Peter realised what he was asking and blushed. He had never had to consider if he was old enough for that kind of stuff. For all that he had been infatuated with Liz, it was a pretty innocent flirtation. If the sight of Deadpool fighting through half a dozen criminals hadn’t been enough, the sight of him dicing a pepper in loose sweat pants had officially convinced him that whatever was going on there wasn’t innocent.

“I promise you haven’t been hitting on a middle schooler all this time. I am firmly in the category of teenager.” He tried to joke, the tone not really carrying through his suddenly tight throat.

“In that case, Dayum, Spidey! You really go around in public looking all nerdy chic and tempting? Please tell me there’s glasses, too.” Wade announced with a grin, relaxing back into his usual self and finally looking back at what he had been doing.

“There use to be, but my eyesight was one of the things that got an upgrade when I became Spiderman.” He answered, quietly pleased that Wade was still complimenting him even without the suit, pulling himself up to perch on the counter and watch the mercenary cook. To no one’s surprise, he had very good knife skills.

They chatted while he finished the tacos, and then moved to the couch to eat. Other than a friendly debate on what cooking show to watch, once they settled it wasn’t all that different from their rooftop meetings. Officially maskless Wade ate at somewhat of a more acceptable pace, but he didn’t push Peter with any more personal questions, and his flirting didn’t go past anything he had said before. All in all he was pretty respectful for an eccentric immortal with no brain to mouth filter. 

If he didn’t already know Wade was a good man, the fact he was all alone at an older guy’s apartment, and no one knew he was there, but he had at no point felt uncomfortable or like he needed to be worried about something he didn’t want happening would have shown him what kind of person Wade was. 

Even if he kept making innuendos about soggy bottoms.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I missed you! Sorry for the break in updates, I was super sick! Still kinda am but I'm trying to power through and start being productive again. Just as well cause this is a chapter I was planning for AGES! Oh and I don't know if anyone actually notices this stuff but I changed my username! The old one was a pen name I started using when I was really young and I felt like I needed a change. So I changed it to another nickname I have, if you don't know what a sweet william is, look it up! The white ones are one of my favourite flowers! But you can still call me Will. It's just iam instead of ow lol. Anywho! I went back and forth trying to decide what kind of clothes Peter should like to wear. Eventually I settled on something soft and casual but high femme, one cause I think he would look really cute and pretty and it would suit him more than other styles, and two I think sometimes who a queer person is attracted to can show what kind of look they like lol. That whole, do I wanna be her or kiss her? thing lol. And Liz had that sort of effortlessly chic thing going on. Side eyes that scene where Peter and Ned dissect her outfits... lol okay this is way too long! Shutting up now, enjoy the chap!

Chapter Sixteen

Aunt May was working the night shift, so he didn’t feel the need to hurry home to his empty apartment. Still, he could only linger at Wade’s for so long after they finished dinner before it got kind of awkward. He wanted to get invited back at some point, so overstaying his welcome didn’t seem like a good idea.

Wade meanwhile was hoping the night would never end, and only came down from his cloud when the younger man started making to depart.

“Well, it was nice having the spider population of this place have a more pleasant member.” He said with a cheesy smile when they said their goodbyes at his door.

“Good to know you aren’t making friends with other spiders. Means I don’t have any competition.” Peter managed to respond without losing nerve halfway through.

“Aw, I promise you are the only bug I wanna snuggle with.” The older man shot back, leaning against the door frame, the picture of confidence in his flirting abilities. 

After a moment he lost the easy smile and looked more uncertain as he fished for something in his pocket.“So, no presh. But if you ever want to meet up, or just shoot the breeze, or need help, whatever, and not have to play Where’s Waldo first.” He said awkwardly, avoiding eye contact as he held out a slip of paper with his number on it.

Peter hesitantly took it, not sure if he was ecstatic or spooked by Wade pushing past another boundary between them.

“I won’t hold it against you if you just throw it in the trash instead of sliding into my DM’s.” He reassured like he knew.

“No, of course I’ll use it.” Peter said quickly, immediately feeling like he sounded too eager but he would rather tip his hand at how much he was starting to like Wade than leave the older man unsure if he had pushed too far.

“Well, I will wait by the phone then.” He said, his cavalier attitude returning full force. “Ringer on and camera at the ready if called on.”

“Uhhh. Okay, good night then. Thanks again for dinner.” Peter said with a squeak, beating a hasty retreat.

When he got home he immediately went straight to his bed and spent a good ten minutes screaming in to a pillow to relieve some of the pent up emotion of the night. After he was done with that he made himself send a text to Wade, just a simple “Hey, this is Spiderman. So you have my number now too.”

He felt a moment of regret that he was still ‘Spiderman’ and not ‘Peter’ but at least he was still spared from having to deal with hearing the other vigilante flirt using his actual name. He got a stream of unintelligible emojis in response, but left it to reply to in the morning. It was tempting to continue where they left off, but he had his mystery appointment with MJ the next day, and he figured being sleep deprived was a bad call when he would have to face  _ whatever _ she had planned.

When he told May he would be spending the day out with his classmate she was pretty happy at the sign of a social life that didn’t just consist of Ned. She gave him some pocket money and said to not worry about staying out too late, just make sure to check in, and he felt a bit like he was lying to her. He wasn’t sure whatever they were getting up to was quite what she had in mind when she urged him to go have some fun.

It didn’t help that he also hadn’t clued her into his growing  _ whatever it was _ with Wade. Even if she didn’t know who Deadpool was, he didn’t think “I’ve been hanging out with an older boy who sometimes kills people for money” would go over well. Plus there was a chance she would tell Mr. Stark.

MJ met him at a predetermined subway station and without much in the way of greeting steered them to a line that would take them to another part of the city. After a few minutes of sitting in nervous silence she smacked his arm with a laugh. “Relax, Parker. I don’t know what you are expecting us to do today, but I promise it’s nothing that justifies you having that look on your face.”

He made his shoulders loosen up and tried to do his best to not zone out while they chatted about how their last competition had gone, and was able to mostly forget exactly why they were hanging out until they had gotten off and walked through a part of the city he hadn’t been to before, eventually reaching MJ’s goal.

She led them into a small store sandwiched between a record store and a Rite-Aid, and when they walked in he took in the narrow aisles of racks and racks of clothes.

“Not to rag on an old-fashioned Goodwill, but this in my opinion is the best place in the city for your gently used, not suspiciously stained, and low-priced fashion needs.” MJ said, strolling in with an air of habit.

“Wait…” Peter said, not completely sure he knew what was going on, but starting to have at least a creeping suspicion. His fears were confirmed when she grabbed him by the hood of his jacket and firmly tugged him to the women’s section, ignoring his scrambling and stuttered refusals. He could have easily gotten free of course, but he didn’t like using his strength except in fights as a rule. Not that he wasn’t tempted to yank free and run outside to immediately climb the building to safety.

“We’re doing this, Doll. No other way to figure this stuff out except experiment. Besides if you bail then I did all that research for no reason.” She said firmly, planting him in front of a row of tops. He realised then why she had bullied him into sending pictures of all the clothes he had stolen from his aunt.

“You did research?”

She just gave him a look that thoroughly stated ‘Who do you think I am?’ and started sorting through the rack. “I have a list, but we’ll be a little flexible since this is about finding whatever you end up being into. Based on what you’ve got so far, I think you’re style is a little more fashion-y than I dress, but I’ll deal. I’m gunna look for some stuff with long sleeves but why don’t you just browse around and see if anything jumps out at you.” She said while studying a green cardigan.

He nervously left her side, not having any idea where to start. The racks were organised by colour, not size, so he started with just looking for colours he liked. There were a couple things in the purple section that caught his interest, but he figured he should try for something different from his sweater. He liked the softer pinks, but nervously went past them, thinking maybe he would work up to that. Red was a no-go, for some reason he didn’t like wearing his hero colours that much when he was in civvies. He looked back at MJ and saw to his dismay she had a pile of tops already in her arms, but decided to just focus on what he was doing instead of panicking. 

He skipped entirely over the black section, dark stuff made him look too pale. He got to the whites and paused. White was kind of neutral, but he knew if he wore any of the white blouses before him, it would be pretty obvious what they were. He hesitantly picked up one that had short sleeves and buttoned to a rounded collar, feeling like the buttons somehow made it a safe choice. After a minute he also grabbed a cream coloured turtleneck, figuring he needed to go back to MJ with more than one thing.

When he nervously presented her with the tops she gave him a pleased smile and tossed them on the pile she had next to her. “Okay, that should be enough for this section. Why don’t you go over there, I’ll go to the pants.” She said, flapping her hand to another row.

“Alright.” Peter said, poker face finally sticking now that he was at least committed to what they were doing. He turned to go where she gestured, but was brought to a halt as MJ called “Oh, wait. First I need…” He was caught by the back of his pants before he could turn to look at her again, and to his embarrassment felt her pull down the hem of his jeans.

“What are you doing?!” He squeaked, trying to look over his shoulder.

“Relax, Chica. I’m just looking what your pants size is. It was weirdly hard to find out what the male and female size scales translate to, but I should be able to figure it out.” She responded, unbothered by him trying to squirm away. Once she was done reading the tag she released him with a pat to his butt that earned another squeak, and wandered away from him like nothing happened.

“Bet Deadpool would have been jealous if he saw that…” Peter mumbled, half not even noticing until the thought was already out of his mouth, his embarrassment instantly doubling when it registered. Determined to stay on track he went over to his assigned rack and immediately froze.

They had looked at shirts, MJ was looking for pants… and she sent him to the dress and skirt section. He had a feeling it was entirely intentional she left him to contemplate this issue on his own. Did he actually want to wear a skirt? Was that somehow taking this too far, or was he exaggerating in his mind how much it mattered where he drew a line?

“Parker! Hurry up, you still have to try all this on!” MJ called from another part of the store, making him jump.

With a sigh he quickly grabbed a couple, a soft black one and a white pleated one, both about knee-high, and after a second struggling also grabbed a denim one. Then he hurried over to where his friend was waiting.

“Here.” He said, pushing them at her and avoiding eye contact.

“Hmm, not bad. No dresses?” She remarked while taking them. He shook his head quickly, but she didn’t seem perturbed. “Well, there’s always next time.” She picked up the huge pile of clothes somehow in one just one arm and walking over to unceremoniously drop them on the floor of a nearby changing stall, heedless of the ‘Only Five Items At Once’ sign.

“Alright, Sis. Time to jump out of the pot and into the fire.” She said, urging him in.

He stumbled into the dressing room and pulled the curtain closed, looking at the pile like it was made of snakes.

_ How did I end up here? _ He thought to himself, officially regretting almost all his life choices.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyoooo back at it again with updating on schedule. So this chap is just jumping right off the last, I kind of wanted to right just ten pages of Peter being adorable in different clothes but I resisted, sorry but you will have to get by with only some of the stuff he got being described. This is based somewhat on the first time I went to a goodwil to buy myself men's clothes, I got this really nice blue button up and started crying in the changing stall. Aaahh memories. Sadly I didn't have an MJ, everyone should have an MJ to help them come out. Anywho we only have a little DP this chap, is the texting right? typing up texts is so weird. I refuse to believe Wade spells anything correctly over text. Okey, enjoy!

Chapter Seventeen

“I would start with the pants, that way you can wear one of them when you try on the shirts.” MJ called in, prompting Peter to at least start shucking off his jeans. After a minute sorting he saw she had picked out a few pairs of jeans, a few shorts.

He started with the jeans, since they seemed relatively unthreatening. Upon closer inspection they were a lot tighter than any of the pants he owned, and one pair had a very high waist.

He went through them, one pair wouldn’t go past his thighs, and another was entirely too tight around his… webshooter. The next two fit better, in that they were molded to him but at least he didn’t feel like a sausage, and he was about to try on the high waisted ones when MJ called in “Did you try on the mom jeans yet?”

“Depends on what mom jeans means.”

“The long ones that make your ass disappear.” 

He awkwardly pulled them on and peeked out to show her.

“You mean these?”

“Yeah! You have to get those, I feel like I’ll be giving into the patriarchy if I let you walk away from here with only skinny jeans.” She said with a thumbs up after inspecting him.

The shorts were a similar experience, except he felt twice as vulnerable and like it was a much more obvious choice if he wore them. Most guys who wore skinny jeans had a different taste in music than he did, but it was still an accepted category of men’s clothing. There was only one kind of guy who wore tastefully distressed short shorts with rips that the pockets hung out of, and Peter did not think he qualified.

“I don’t know about this…” He said as he inspected himself in the mirror.

“How about you reserve judgement until you see them with the tops.” MJ said patiently.

“Meh..” He grumbled, going back in and moving on to the rest of the clothes. 

He pulled off his t-shirt and picked up the first top on the pile, something pink and fuzzy that he almost immediately put back down before he got another “Come on!” from outside the stall. He tugged it on and shuffled out, his arms wrapped around his waist defensively.

MJ turned from where she was sorting through a display of fingerless gloves to inspect him. “Yeah, that’s about what I expected.” She critiqued, nonplussed. “Except…” She reached out and messed with his hair, fluffing it up and pulling it forward more. “There, look and see if that’s what you were hoping for.”

“I don’t know that I was actually hoping for anything…” He trailed off as he saw himself in the mirror. “Specific.” He finished lamely.

It was like the first time he put on May’s sweater, except way better. Instead of just a hint, it was an entire picture. The shorts did him quite a few favours, and the top made him look soft and feminine, hiding the more obvious signs he was a boy. He didn’t quite look like a girl, but the whole outfit and the way MJ messed with his hair, it was definitely something in the category of androngynous. If someone saw him walking down the street, they might have a moment of confusion. He _ loved _ it.

His hands dropped from his sides and he started turning this way and that, taking it in from every angle. The more he looked, the more he liked it, and he started to actually feel a little emotional. Before, he had  _ no idea _ the was something he would have ever wanted.

“It’s chill if you wanna cry. Let it out or whatever. It’s a normal response, apparently.” MJ said in a monotone voice, watching him from the side and trying not to smile.

“I’m not gunna cry.” He hurried to say, mostly sure it was true. He took one more look and went back into the changing stall, all his nerves evaporating and being replaced with excitement to try on the rest.

He went through all the tops, keeping most of them with the occasional reassurance or strong-arm from MJ. There was a moment when he almost choked again when he got to the skirts, but he powered through, and it paid off. It was definitely a new feeling to have everything all… open, but the way they swished around his legs was fun. MJ let him twirl around in front of the mirror for about five minutes until he accidentally went too fast and flashed her.

“Okay, I didn’t need to see that.” She droned, not looking actually all that scandalised. “My threshold for pretending to care about something material and capitalist has officially been reached. Go change back so we can check out and then go get some food.”

He mutely nodded in embarrassment and headed back in, keeping his hands firmly tucked around his blue-silk-covered butt. Lesson learned.

Before they went to the register she made them detour to the shoe section and pick out a neutral pair of ankle boots that she said would go with everything he got. There was an awkward moment when he didn’t have enough money for it all but she firmly told him to shut up and paid for all of it with a stern “If you pay then you wont have any money to buy me a burger. And I demand a free meal after this waste of an afternoon.”

He took the charity with an awkward thank you, mentally resolving to treat her to lunch as many times as possible in the future. After that they headed to a nearby diner.

Once they found a booth and ordered, he pulled out his phone for the first time that afternoon and shot Wade a text. He had gotten several messages from the other man since the night before, he was apparently unbothered by not getting any response and continued to monologue various things as he went about his day. 

_ Peter: Hey! Been busy today, was out with a friend. Wanna patrol with me later? _

Almost immediately he got a reply.

💀 💦 _ : Spidey! No wories, hope yr havin fun! But not to much fun  _ 👀 _ Of course I wanna! just tell me wen and where Bb. _

He was apparently grinning too obviously as he typed out his answer, as MJ remarked dryly “When did you find time to get a love life, Penny? Who’s the unlucky lad or lady?”

He spluttered and hurriedly tucked his phone back into his pocket. “No one! I don’t have a love life, he’s just a friend.” He said defensively.

MJ just raised an eye brow and went back to doctoring her coffee.

“Okay, he might be more than that but, it’s complicated.” He said after a minute of her silently judging him.

“Complicated in the fact he’s a he, or does this have to do with your… hobby?” She asked, not really caring that much, but she knew from the whole thing with Liz, a crushing Peter was an amusing thing to see.

“Maybe both. He’s one of the other… you know, people who have the same hobby.” He said, zero subtlety in the way he said the allegory. “But I’ve been warned to stay away from him. It seems like I’m the only one who knows that he’s on our side.”

“So what? Reputation doesn’t mean anything. You of all people should know that.” She said bluntly.

He considered her words for a minute. She had a point. Just about every hero had a point in their career when people thought they were a villain, or at least a really bad hero. But he stubbornly continued, thinking there was a lot more issues than Mr. Stark’s opinions. “There’s also just that we are… really different. He’s been doing this longer, and he’s older than me.”

This finally seemed to faze her, but in a way he entirely didn’t want to. “Exactly how much older?” She asked suspiciously.

“God, not you too. He’s not some creepy middle-aged man hanging out with a kid, and I am not twelve. He’s older, but not so much it’s gross.” He sniped back. Why did everyone seem to focus on the wrong problems?

“If you say so..” She said suspiciously, like she was still sort of wondering if she needed to hunt down whoever his would-be suitor was.

“I just meant I don’t really know if I’m on the same level as him. If there’s on thing I’ve learned, it’s that I’m better off focusing on the small, day to day problems, and I probably wont ever get further than that. Which is fine! But… Sometimes I don’t get why he wants to hang out with _ me  _ of all people, I mean, you should have seen him fight the other night, it was  _ unreal _ . And that’s not even mentioning all  _ this _ stuff.” He said, gesturing to his bags of clothes and officially word vomiting all of his worries about Wade now that he had someone to talk to about it. “For all I know if he knew who I was outside our… hobby, he would be totally uninterested. He thinks I’m just a guy, maybe he won’t be into me like this.” He stopped and slumped back in the booth, the giddy feeling in his stomach from shopping starting to curdle.

“Wow, Penny. I didn’t know you were a quitter.” MJ deadpanned before looking to the waitress who was bringing their food. She focused on dissecting her burger and paid no mind to her perturbed friend.

“I!” He finally got out indignantly. “Am not a quitter! That is so rude! And- wait did you say Penny?” He said, pausing in declaring his offense when he digested the end of her statement.

“Yup. Took you long enough to notice, but I’ve been using feminine terms to refer to you all day. Was waiting to see if it would bother you or not, should have realised you are too much of a spacehead to notice something like that.” She said dryly as she started munching on her fries.

_ Ah.  _ Now that he thought back, she had been doing that. And it hadn’t really felt any different than how people usually talked to him. Maybe she had been right when she pointed out he was just seeing insults in being called a girl, and away from that he felt pretty much the same either way. He started mindlessly eating his food, suddenly rethinking  _ a lot _ of things in his life and relationships.

MJ let him stew for a while, waiting until they were both almost done eating to ask “Do you want me to stop?”

He looked up at her, a confused little frown on his face. “No…?” He answered, or maybe asked, he wasn’t sure.

“Alright. Just know you can tell me at any point if I say something that doesn’t feel right. And I think you should give your guy the benefit of the doubt about whether he will still like you.” She said, giving him a warm smile before she went back to her usual affectless manner. “So, I think the first time you wear any of that to school, you should start with the white shirt with the buttons.”

Peter choked on the fry he was eating, and she didn’t react beyond a raised eye brow as he coughed it up and looked at her in disbelief. “School?!”


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeyyy I am loving all the comments! OVER 50 OMG! And we got to 2k views! This chap is mostly just Spideypool being cute and gay and pretending they aren't flirting. Also a little angst, cause well, they talk a bit more about their origin stories. Deadpool actually discussing Deadpool is always just kinda sadness interspersed with dick jokes. And idk if Peter is a little ooc at the end but I had to... I just had to.

Chapter Eighteen

When Peter got home, May was waiting eagerly to see how his afternoon out had gone. She had learned to not hate the fact her little nephew was a hero that spent most of his nights in danger, well _ mostly _ not hate, but ever since she found out it made the normal aspects of his life seem so much more important.

“Hey! So, did you have fun? What did you guys do?” She asked excitedly, just before spotting the bags in his hands. “Did you go shopping?”

“Uh… Yeah. She took me to a thrift store she knows.” He responded uncomfortably, his eyes screaming  _ Do Not Ask Me What Is In The Bags! _

“So what did you get? Let me see!” She demanded with a grin. Him showing any interest in shopping was definitely new, he wasn’t one to ask for things like new clothes or nice shoes. Hell, he barely wanted to confess every time he needed a new backpack.

For a minute Peter almost refused, but then he figured it wasn’t fair to hide things from her when she hadn’t been anything except accepting and encouraging since his little journey of self-exploration had started. 

He walked over to the couch and started pulling out the things he bought, laying them on the coffee table without looking to see her reaction. For a minute things were quiet as he nervously looked at the carpet, and she tried to decide what she should say, taking in the pile of women’s clothes her nephew had presented.

“I think… I like this pink top best.” She finally said, and his eyes shot up to meet hers in surprise. She smiled at him as wide and as kindly as she could, trying to say without saying that he had no reason to be afraid of her reaction.

“Thanks.” He said faintly, his nerves evaporating and leaving him feeling a little light-headed.

“It’s good you got mostly warm stuff… hmmm, make sure you don’t pick the wrong day to wear those shorts, I’ve made that mistake more than once. Same for the skirts. I might get you some leggings or tights before it gets officially cold out, I know you are beyond the common cold now, but whatever. It’s the principle of the thing that you don’t let your kid run around with freezing legs.” She commented, sorting through the pile.

“Right.” He agreed, watching her with, well not disbelief. He had no real reason to be surprised. His aunt was kind of perfect. But he guessed he just had it internalised that what he was doing, was a  _ problem _ .

“Oh! And when you do wear them, I have this stuff for chafing in the bathroom, make sure you use it.”

“May!”

Eventually she released him to put his stuff away, sternly pointing out what things he should hang in his closet instead of ‘throwing it in a bunched up mess in your dresser’. He grumbled at her antics, but really he was in the best mood he had been in a while. Even his earlier angst about Wade was replaced with excitement as the other vigilante continued to flood his phone with enthusiasm for getting to patrol with him that night.

He made himself at least wait until after dinner before leaving, not noticing his aunt’s puzzled amusement when he practically checked his texts between every bite of zucchini casserole. As soon as the last of the dishes were on the drying rack he took off, eagerly flinging himself through the boroughs to the meeting place he told Wade.

When he got close enough to spot the red suited older man sitting on the edge of roof, he stopped for a minute to watch him, and then approached as subtly as he could. He landed and crept over to him on light feet, and when he was almost close enough to touch, yelled “Hey, Wade!” in feigned cheerful innocence.

“Christ on a Cock!” Deadpool screeched in surprise, jumping and whirling around to face the voice. “Not cool, Spidey!” He yelled, spotting the cackling teen and catching himself from falling off the building.

“Come on, that was priceless, I totally got you. Aren’t you supposed to be an assassin or something?” Peter got out between laughs.

“Hell yes, Baby boy. I put the ass, sass, and sin in assassin. Not my fault you’re a sneaky little-!” He cut off the insult by pouncing on the younger boy and catching him around the waist, rubbing his knuckles against his head in an over-the-mask noogie.

“Lemme go, man!” Peter complained, squirming in his friend’s grip but not genuinely trying to escape. He felt a little guilty about how much he was enjoying being manhandled. It seemed now that they had officially decided they were going to go all in on being friends, Wade was a lot more comfortable touching him, and judging by their dinner date, he was a casually tactile kind of person.

“Nope, gotta teach you a lesson so you don’t get up to anymore spider-nanigans.” The merc asserted, not exactly carrying out the threat as the capture turned into a hug, both arms around him and Wade’s head perching on top of his.

“Right… I definitely am regretting my actions.” Peter said, trying to keep his voice even, as he really didn’t want to cue the other man into anything he was thinking at that moment.

“Good, cause if you decided to keep being an  _ naughty _ Spidey, I might have to-”

“Okay! Okay, on that note!” He quickly derailed wherever  _ that _ was going, trying likewise to derail his mind from considering the possible endings to the entendre. He pulled himself from Wade’s arms and quickly started walking away. “We gotta start patrolling if we are going to make my regular schedule.”

“All work no play makes for a dull Spiderboy, but alright I wouldn’t want to make you regret inviting me along.” The other man replied easily. “After you, m’dear.” He said, waving to the edge of the roof.

“Let’s see if you can keep up.” Peter said with a grin, launching himself into the air.

“Oh  _ bet _ , Baby boy…” Wade said under his breath taking in the sight of the web-slinger flying through the night for a moment before following.

The patrol didn’t actually go all that different. The same car thieves and muggers, lost tourists and nice old ladies who gave him snacks. Just this time, he had a sword-wielding companion. No one seemed particularly worried about the tall and heavily armed shadow Spiderman seemed to have acquired. Peter figured it was due to the similarities in their suits at a distance and hoped no one took note of the new figure on the streets enough that it got back to Mr. Stark. 

He knew he was playing with fire, actually working with Deadpool without an emergency as an excuse, but at that point, it might have been him getting over-invested in his new crush, but he thought it was more than worth the risk.

Speaking of his crush, he fully admitted having Wade around sometimes drove him to distraction. He toned down the level of violence to accommodate Spiderman’s style of crime fighting, but he was still pretty impressive to watch, and they were both messing around a bit to show off for the other. The only real hiccup was that Wade wasn’t exactly… nice to himself.

Peter wasn’t always level-headed and careful, that wasn’t a secret, but in comparison to Wade, he was an angel. It might have actually been a miracle that he didn’t find out about the other man’s healing factor sooner, because he seemed to have absolutely no problem getting hurt since all but the worst wounds would be gone in seconds. Throughout the night it became clearer and clearer that Deadpool didn’t treat injuries or pain like they were actually bad, more just an occasional inconvenience or something to complain about in a way that showed he wasn’t actually bothered, he just wanted to make a witty remark.

“Wade…” Peter started uncertainly when they had stopped for the night and were relaxing for a while before parting ways. Wade had insisted they needed burgers and shakes to celebrate their first official team up.

“Wassup?” He asked around the straw he was more messing with than actually drinking from, again to Peter’s distraction. But he had an objective, so he needed to focus.

“You actually feel pain, don’t you?”

“Hmmm.” The older man lowered the shake and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Yeah, of course I do. Why?”

“It just seems like… you could be safer than you are. Like, you could have avoided most the hits you took tonight, but you didn’t seem to care enough to. Honestly it kind of worries me, if you  _ can _ feel it, why are you so casual about getting hurt?” Peter tried to explain what he had been feeling all night, without it seeming like he was chastising the older man or judging him.

“Oh.” Wade was quiet for a minute, taking in everything his friend said. It had been a long time since anyone had any feelings about his powers beyond “ew” “gross” and “creepy” It seemed common sense to most people that once you couldn’t die, what did it matter what else happened to you?

“I guess part of it is that I’m always in pain, so what’s a little stab wound or broken bone added on?” He eventually reasoned out.

“You are? Like, all the time?” Peter asked with a look on his face like he was watching a puppy get kicked.

“Yup. All day, e’ery day.” He drawled the answer. “Sure, I can’t die. But my body is still a cancer-ridden trash heap of darwinian mistakes.” He looked back over to Spiderman and felt a moment of gratefulness that the other still kept his mask on, because just the bottom of the look on his face was heartbreaking enough. He wouldn’t be surprised if the younger teen was actually tearing up. “It’s not like… a big deal.” He tried to walk it back.

“How is that not a big deal, Wade?”

“I’m not saying it’s a box of animal crackers, Spidey. I’m just sayin you don’t gotta be sad about it. Turn the heartbroken grimace upside down.” When his assurance made absolutely no impact, he sighed and put his arm around the other in an awkward attempt at comfort. He had been experimenting to see how handsy the web-slinger would let him be before rebuffing him, and so far the results had been surprisingly positive.

“If I admit that being in chronic pain due to my disease-riddled body isn’t ideal, but that it’s something I have learned to live with and honestly is the least of my problems in my day-to-day life, will you stop looking at me like I just told you your parents died in a tragic unicycling accident?” He tried. Having someone care about him was exhausting.

Peter stared at the mercenary, slowly processing each part of his statement. “Why unicycling?” He eventually asked, not entirely sure what he was feeling.

“What, you’ve never wondered what it would be like to get run over by one of those giant circus unicycles?” Wade said with a grin, perking up as he thought he had successfully defused the conversation.

Peter stared at him for a moment longer before abruptly dissolving into giggles, aware it was a horrible and completely inappropriate response, but not able to stop anyway.

“Is that a yes?” The older man asked with an amused grin at the boy losing it next to him.

“No, no I don’t think about that.” He said between laughs. “I’m laughing, because of  _ all _ the things you could have said, you chose that!” He lost his composure even more, taking about a minute before he could get the rest of his words out. “And my parents have been dead for ages!”

Wade watched Spiderman fall over and bump into his side from the giggles shaking him, absolutely speechless. Despite being speechless, he managed to speak.

“God damnit.”


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EYO HERE WE GO, I seriously love this chap. We got some quality bants followed by Dat Gay Shit as Peter starts coming out more. Content warning for prejudicial comments and bullying because yeah people can be jerks, but it's not too bad dw. And idk how well this MJ stands up to canon, I guess I feel like this Peter is too preoccupied with Deadpool and his identity stuff to crush on her, and MJ is just fully Ally Goggles. Also bonus for anyone who spots the fashion pun.

Chapter Nineteen

“It’s fine, honestly. How could you have known?” Peter reassured for the third time, over his giggling fit and mostly composed again.

“I should have assumed! That’s the corner stone of every hero mythology. If you don’t have a fridged wife, or  _ you _ haven’t died and been resurrected by quack science or vaguely racist asian magics, then you definitely got dead parents. It’s a rule! And since you can’t legally get married, I should have thought it was a fair bet you were in the Batman category of origin stories.” Wade refuted, still beating himself up over his joke despite it being half an hour later.

“I’m not sure it’s more polite to assume we are all orphans.” Peter said, smiling fondly at him. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you hijacked our conversation. I’d still like to talk at some point about your lack of a self-preservation instinct. I don’t like it when you get hurt, and I don’t get why you wouldn’t avoid it when you can.”

“It’s adorable that you think it matters.” 

He huffed in exasperation “You are an infuriating man.”

“Give me a chance and I’ll be a man who’s ‘in’ something else entirely.” Wade purred, leaning into him slightly.

Peter’s mind unwittingly filled with not exactly unwanted thoughts, but definitely nothing he could dwell on or do anything about that moment, so he did his best to push them away. “I know we aren’t at your place, but why exactly am I the only one who has to follow rule number one?” He asked a little desperately.

“I’d think that would be obvious, Baby boy. You are the one out the two of us who can always be trusted to behave himself. Such a gentlemanly Spidermanly.” Wade answered with a sappy look on his face.

“What if I wasn’t a man?”

“Well… that’s an entirely different point, I guess. You could still be a gentleman, couldn’t you? I’d like to think I can be quite the fair lady sometimes, even if I’m not a woman.”

The answer gave him pause. If Wade was the kind of person to say that… Maybe MJ was right about not giving him enough credit. He almost let it all slip out, all of it. 

“Spidey… Something you want to tell me?”

But he didn’t. “One of these days, I might decide to be the one who isn’t behaving.” He said instead, ignoring the other gaping in surprise to continue. “It’s getting late, and I still have a curfew during the weekends. I don’t want anyone coming looking for me when I’m with you, so I need to go.”

“Ugh, talk about hit it and quit it, Baby boy. Alright, I know when to take a win. I’ll see you next time.”

“You say that like you won’t be blowing up my phone every minute until then.” Peter accused, making to leave.

“Was there ever any doubt? Sweet dreams, Baby boy.”

“Good night, Wade.”

Peter spent the rest of the weekend with a dopy grin on his face, riding the high of the past couple days while he dealt with the more mundane parts of his life. Maybe his homework didn’t exactly get done with a lot of speed and concentration because Wade kept sending him cat videos, and maybe May had to remind him three times to finish doing the dishes because he kept getting texts why it should be acceptable to eat unground coffee beans straight out the bag, but that was no ones business.

Then Monday morning came around and he had to confront exactly what he’d been ignoring since his shopping trip. He almost decided to keep going like nothing happened, but like she could sense him wimping out, he got a text from MJ. It was just a string of emojis, but was also somehow extremely judgemental.

It would be one thing if he didn’t actually want to wear any of his new clothes… but he  _ really really did. _ It was even a nice day so he didn’t have the excuse of needing the usual layers of his normal outfits. 

Feeling an odd sense of deja vu for the first time he put on a thong, he picked out something white and lacy and pulled one of the pairs of shorts on over it, followed by the collared shirt MJ said he should wear, and then a pair of the calf-high socks they got for wearing with his new ankle boots.

After a frustrating session in the bathroom trying to make his hair fluffy and cute like MJ made it, the effect eventually attained more through the fact it was fluffed up from him messing with it than him actually figuring it out, he headed to the kitchen, barely resisting the urge to hide around the corner when he saw his aunt standing next to the stove.

“Hey, Petey. Want some eggs?” She turned to smile at him. “Oh. That one of your new outfits?” She asked, obviously knowing it was since he had never owned anything remotely like it before.

“Yeah… What do you think?”

She put the hand holding a spatula to her cheek and looked him over seriously, humming in deliberation, just trying to tease him but it went over the nervous teen’s head. “Looks good, kiddo! You know, wear stuff that shows a little thought instead of just t-shirts more often and you might actually catch someone’s eye one of these days.” She commented with a sly look.

“Ugh, May! I’m not trying to ‘catch anyone’s eye’” He refuted, silently thinking that there was  _ someone _ but he mostly saw him in spandex so clothing choices didn’t matter much.

“Awww, are you still sad about your girlfriend? You know, high school romances usually don’t last long, try not to dwell on it. Now hurry up and eat, you took forever in the bathroom and you’ll be late soon.”

Peter took the offered plate of food with a roll of his eyes and decided to not correct her. Honestly, he had been too busy thinking about Wade to be sad anymore about Liz, or even consider anyone else at school. Apparently he was a one-consuming-infatuation-at-a-time kind of person.

As soon as he left his apartment, he felt like everyone he walked past was staring. He knew they weren’t, he had spent plenty of time running around shooting webs and getting stared at by strangers, so he knew what that was actually like, but the feeling persisted the rest of the way to school. He caught himself fiddling with the collar of his shirt and pulling at the hem of his shorts a dozen times at least before he even walked into Midtown’s front doors.

He started to get a few curious looks then, teenagers were a lot more nosey and cared about people’s fashion choices more than random adults commuting to work, but it seemed like he might have gotten worked up over nothing. Or at least it did for a couple seconds.

“Wooaahh, Penis Parker, barely recognised you for a second.” Flash was suddenly hollering at him as he got his locker open, setting off his spidey-sense to portend something bad about to happen. He turned with a grimace to face the other boy, who was scanning him up and down with a weird look on his face.

“What do you want, Flash?” Peter tried to say the words with a ‘Don’t mess with me!’ attitude, but his nerves made them just come out reedy and uncertain. He  _ knew _ if anyone was going to cause him problems, it was going to be Flash.

“Nothing, I was just wondering when you decided you sucked so much at being a dude that you should be chick instead.”

“I’m not, it’s not- I’m not a chick!” He stuttered out.

“Oh, so you’re finally admitting you’re a homo by going full camp then?” The other boy retorted with a sneer.

Peter looked away angrily, his face burning with embarrassment. People were starting to notice the exchange and were watching. What was he supposed to say? He wasn’t actually all that sure he was a guy anymore, he knew for sure at this point he wasn’t straight. He was being a dick, but nothing Flash was saying was actually untrue.

“Jeez, Flash. Why don’t you just say they’re pretty and ask them out already. This whole pulling pigtails thing is a little outdated, don’t you think?” 

MJ was suddenly next to him, staring Flash down with a flat look as she put a comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder.

Flash spluttered at the insinuation, his eyes wide as he looked away nervously. “As if! What does that even- I would never-! You don’t know what you’re talking about, Michelle!”

“Yeah, well even if I don’t, I am captain of the team now. And last I checked, if I really wanted to kick someone out on the grounds of using prejudicial language against a teammate, I don’t think Mr.Harrington would have a case to stop me.” She let go of his shoulder to slowly approach the now cowed bully like a cat stalking a bird. “So maybe you should watch your mouth.”

Flash looked caught between unnerved and enraged, his eyes going back and forth between MJ and Peter, who was at that point trying to not make it obvious he was hiding behind his friend. “Whatever, I’ve got better things to do than watch whatever this train wreck is.” He walked off, doing an almost admirable job of making it look like he wasn’t fleeing.

Peter let out a sigh of relief that was almost a groan. “Thanks, MJ. That was… I sorta froze up there.” He felt a bit of shame that he was a superhero, but still got affected by Flash’s insults and jibes.

“It’s chill, Penny. I helped push you into the deep end, would be a dick move to let you drown after. I was totally right about that shirt though, he probably did think you were pretty.” She said with a shit-eating grin.

“MJ!”

“Hey, just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“Uh, what the hell is going on guys?”

They both turned to see Ned, obviously on his way to his locker when he came upon the commotion. He looked super confused, taking in Peter and MJ’s sudden camaraderie, and his best friend’s  _ very different  _ detour in clothing choices.

“Hey, Ned…” Peter started, having no idea how to explain himself.

“Penny and I went shopping over the weekend. Wanna come next time?” MJ asked easily, immune as usual to awkwardness.

“Penny?”


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE!!! Okay so from now on Peter is officially transitioning their gender identity and presentation. In this chapter they decide to start using they/them pronouns, since they are genderfluid, masculine or feminine pronouns are still sometimes alright to use, but in general that is the pronouns this story will use for Peter. I hope it isn't too confusing, I tried to do my best to show the process of coming to terms with how you see yourself vs how you actually want to be seen. Exactly how they want to be referred to and the whole name issue, as well as the Spiderman problem will be explained more in the next chap. Also for anyone who didn't catch it, yes I made their coming out outfit a pun cause though they don't know this, the shirt they wear has a PETER-Pan collar. Okay, I love you all so much, your comments and this hella view count gives me life. Le-GO!

Chapter Twenty

Ned eventually chilled out, MJ’s unflappable air somehow forcing him to take the sudden changes in his friend in stride. He at least seemed to get school wasn’t the right place to ask for any explanations, and just watched in confusion throughout the day as Peter was mostly the same as always, but somehow also  _ really different _ . He was still  _ Peter _ of course, but it was like he moved a little different, held himself in a way that wasn’t quite normal. In a way that was kind of… feminine?

Ned felt a weird squirming in his gut when he realised his friend hadn’t exactly looked  _ bad _ before, but dressed like that he was… something definitely not bad. It wasn’t a huge difference, after all he thought Peter was an okay looking dude (and also was ripped from his mutation) but Ned wasn’t into dudes so it never made any impression on him. It was making an impression now. Not that he was suddenly  _ into _ Peter, ugh he felt a little queasy at the idea of picturing his best friend in anything but a platonic context. 

But… the shirt he had on made everything about him look kind of soft and cute, just loose enough it didn’t make it too obvious his chest was completely flat, and the shorts were well… short. Apparently Peter had kinda long legs, and you couldn’t really tell he didn’t shave, so they didn’t look that different from a girl’s legs. Really, nothing about him dressed like that was all that different from a girl. A really pretty girl.

And Ned, even with a nauseous feeling at thinking of his friend as anything other than a  _ friend _ , was kind of hopeless around pretty girls. There was a reason him and Peter spent almost two years just watching Liz across the lunch room instead of talking to her. People like them didn’t just  _ talk _ to girls like that. Even MJ intimidated him sometimes when she looked like she had actually checked what her hair looked like that morning or wore something that didn’t have half a dozen patches sewn onto it.

He felt bad when it came to lunch time and he couldn’t do much but watch in silence as Peter sat across from him, uncomfortably picking at his sandwich while MJ blathered on about all the inaccuracies in history class that day, all three of them doing their best to ignore whenever someone obviously looked over to stare at Peter and whisper to their friends.

The little incident with Flash had spread around, and where before no one cared a whole lot about Peter Parker the decathlon nerd with like  _ three friends _ , or what he chose to wear, the public argument had made it into a Topic. No one was exactly being mean, but knowing a bunch of people were speculating about something you yourself were already confused about wasn’t a  _ great _ feeling for Peter.

MJ was mostly what was making Peter keep it together. She wasn’t exactly social, even now that they were closer friends than they had been before, so it was very obvious that she was sticking close and offering herself as a distraction. He also didn’t miss that she would glare at anyone she noticed staring too long, and peppered the things she said to him with feminine endearments and nicknames, like she could reaffirm what he was doing just by calling him ‘Doll’ and ‘Chica’ enough times. He had to admit, every time she threw out one of the terms or obviously avoided using a masculine pronoun, he felt a little warmth in his stomach. 

He really liked it, he realised. Maybe not all the time, it wasn’t that he  _ never _ wanted to be treated like a boy. Just, maybe when he was feeling the way he was that day, the way MJ was talking to and about him was good.  _ About.. them? _ He tried out in his head, a minute later mustering the bravery to turn  _ About her? _ around his head to see how it felt. There was definitely an air of temptation to the last one, but… they tucked it away for the minute, the blush painting their face proof that that might be a step they needed to work up to. Just working on something neutral seemed like a better idea for now.

Their other saving grace was Wade texting them regularly throughout the day, as he was wont to do now that they were talking regularly. The mercenary was out of town on business, but apparently not all that busy because he peppered his friend with messages about any and everything as the day went on. There was some cognitive dissonance in the fact he had no idea what was going on with them, but it also was a bit of a relief for something to be without complications. Or at least, mostly. 

The whole Deadpool situation was still kind of complicated, but they were trying to just let whatever was going to happen, happen. Which was why they had already agreed to patrol together again as soon as the other vigilante was back from whatever job he was currently on.

They weren’t exactly… thrilled about the fact their friend was likely planning a hit at that very moment, but they also knew it wasn’t really their place to judge. Spiderman didn’t kill, if he did it would probably make him fly right to the top of the NYPD’s most wanted list, and as a high school student, they didn’t think they were at all qualified to be judge, jury, and executioner. But they also knew they couldn’t expect everyone to have the same morals and rules. And it would be kind of hypocritical, since Spiderman was pretty much sponsored by the Avengers, and every singe one of the Avengers had killed before, sometimes not even bad guys. Everyone knew some of the heroes had rocky pasts before they all came together for the Battle of New York. So they just had to trust that Wade was one of the good guys, and would never take a job that would put him on the wrong side.

In the mean time, they had other things to think about than the impending blood Deadpool would be spilling soon.

“Hey, Ned?” Peter hesitantly started when they were both at their lockers at the end of the day.

“Yeah? Wassup, Dude? Er… wassup.. uh.” Ned trailed off awkwardly, not sure if MJ’s earlier way of talking to his friend meant things like ‘Dude’ and ‘Buddy’ were suddenly going to offend.

“It’s fine. Dude, or whatever. You don’t need to.. Um… Want to come over? Aunt May says I can’t patrol on Mondays unless there’s an emergency so I was just going to go home and study, play some video games maybe. You could, come do that. With me, I mean?” Every awkward sentence out of their mouth made them cringe, but they did their best to power through. Ned was being… distant, but he didn’t seem mad or like he had a problem with whatever he thought Peter was doing. Hopefully if they just powered through the weirdness, and maybe made themselves actually use their words to try and explain, things would feel normal again soon.

For a minute, Ned wanted to say no. Make up an excuse and flee from having to think about whatever was going on with his best friend until the next morning. Then he felt really bad for considering it, but sue him he had no idea how to handle any of this! Him and Peter had been in each other’s pockets since they met, sure the whole Spiderman thing had been a hiccup in that, but even if ‘guy in the chair’ never really became a thing, it brought them closer more than anything. And suddenly it seemed like Peter had once again been hiding something from him, maybe even straight up lying. But… he also was at least aware enough to know whatever was going on with his friend was in no way about him or his feelings, and he wasn’t owed anything. And saying no to the somewhat desperate invitation would be a  _ dick move _ .

“Sure, just gotta let my mom know. Should I say I won’t be home for dinner?”

When Peter visibly relaxed and gave him a blinding smile, he knew he had said the right thing and gave himself a mental pat on the back. A moment later he internally cringed when he noticed a dude who he thought was in Junior year walk past and do a double take when he spotted them, almost walking into a wall as he kept staring at Peter’s butt. 

Thankfully they didn’t notice, but Ned thought ruefully that maybe he had been worrying about the wrong things when it came to his friend’s transition, if things like that were going to keep happening. At least he wasn’t the only one who was really was  _ useless _ sometimes around pretty girls.


	21. Chapter Twenty One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Just so you know, this was my practice run for Nanowrimo and I am going to try and wrap it up before then, but I also kinda fly by the seat of my pants so we will see how many more chaps this will end up having. I promise I'm not trying to actually string it out, but like... how much longer do you think I have until I am like legally required to label this slowburn? Okay coming up we got Ned well, figuring it out? Maybe? Either way he's a bro. Let's play how many times can Peter come out to one person?

Chapter Twenty One

They made the pilgrimage across the city to Peter and May’s apartment, Peter doing their best to stop being paranoid about people looking at them, and Ned doing his best to ignore when people actually  _ were _ looking at his friend.

“May! I’m back with Ned!”

“Hey, Petey! Hey, Nederino! Homework before video games please!” May’s voice came from somewhere in the recess of the apartment.

“Alright, I gotta go to the bathroom, wanna get set up in my room and we can start with the stuff for history?” Peter suggested. They didn’t actually need to go but to their embarrassment it turned out May was right about the chafing thing so they needed to stop by the medicine cabinet.

After that awkward little task they collected enough snacks for one growing human teenage boy and one growing mutant with an advanced metabolism, and wandered back to Ned. Their friend was sitting on the floor surrounded by the detritus of their upcoming quiz, but was zoning out staring at the wall instead of any of the books.

“You alright, dude?”

“Uh… yeah. Just, is this one of the things we aren’t talking about? Because if it is, alright I’ll just… not talk about it. But apparently you  _ are _ talking about it with MJ, so…” Ned said awkwardly, a little peeved but trying not to be. He really  _ was _ trying to not take any of it personally, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt like he had really been left out of the loop. “I thought after I found out about you being Spiderman, I was like your guy again, for talking about stuff.”

“I wasn’t trying to _ not _ talk to you about stuff. Really, I wasn’t.” Peter tried to reassure. “MJ only ended up helping me because she found my… well, she found my…”

“This is about the underwear thing, isn’t it? You said that was just because your suit.” Ned said, some accusation in the words.

“Well, it was at the beginning… And then I was just kind of confused and didn’t know what it  _ was _ about. And MJ knows more about that kind of stuff so she helped me.” They realised it sounded like a weak defense, but they really had just been stumbling along and didn’t mean to keep any of it from their best friend. “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, honestly. I just didn’t know how to explain.”

“Explain now then.” Ned prodded them with a frown.

“Okay… Well I was telling the truth when you asked me if I was like Valerie. I’m not, it’s not like that. I mean… it’s a little like that in the sense that I don’t think I’m quite a..” They hesitated for a minute, realising this would be the first time they actually said it outloud. “I don’t think I’m a boy. Sometimes, I feel like a normal guy, but other times… I’m more like… well this.” They finished with an awkward wave to themselves.

“I don’t really get it.” Ned started with a confused look. “But I guess it doesn’t matter really if I do. Is there… a way I can help? I wanna help, like MJ is doing. You’re my best friend, if this is what’s going on with you, I want to be a part of it.”

Peter really loved their friend. Like, a lot. “I think when I’m having a day that I feel more… feminine.” They made themself say, feeling somehow like it was a dirty word, even though they knew it really wasn’t. “Or sometimes just more neutral, I’d like it if you could talk about me the way MJ was today.”

Ned screwed up his face like he was thinking really hard. “Got it, I can do that. What about… are you still… Are you still going to go by Peter?”

They hesitated, thinking it over. They hadn’t actually thought about that. ‘Peter Benjamin Parker’ definitely had a masculine air to it. So did ‘Spiderman’ for that matter. But part of them balked at the idea of changing something that their family had given them. Their name was one of the few things they had left from their parents, and their uncle. And being a hero, it meant so much to them, something that really went beyond things like being a man or a woman. It was a symbol to the people, the ‘Friendly neighbourhood Spiderman’. 

“Yeah, I am. I don’t really care if I’m not a boy but have a boy’s name. That’s still me, even if ‘me’ is a little different than what my parents had in mind when they named me. And Spiderman will be the same too. I’ll always be Spiderman, even if I’m not a man.” They decided. “But, it would be okay if you called me Penny sometimes, like MJ does. Just as a nickname.”

Ned grinned at them. “Okay, sounds good, Penny. Is there anything else?”

“Umm… MJ researched some things, before we went to get me new clothes. I don’t know what specifically. But would you maybe want to help me look some things up? Things about people like me?”

“Yeah, of course, man! Oh… er… I mean..” Ned stumbled over the moniker.

“It’s alright.” They reassured, more grateful he was trying than bothered by the mistake. “We’ll figure it out. Right?”

“Of course! We totally got this. Research is totally a guy in the chair thing, isn’t it?” Ned gushed enthusiastically. If there was one thing he knew he could do right, it was study to learn something new. Learning about gender stuff, it couldn’t be harder than learning like, code, right?

The next couple hours they wandered around the more progressive and enlightened areas of the net, guided by a list of terms and acronyms MJ sent them after a they texted her for some tips.

“What about this one; ‘Genderfluid- Describes a person who does not consistently identify with one fixed gender, and who may move between gender identities.’?” Ned asked as he scanned through a list of different gender identities.

Peter considered the description, their head tilted to the side as they thought. “That actually sounds close. Closer than the other ones so far, at least.”

“I’ll look more into that then. Hey… What does this mean when you like, start dating again? Are you still going to date like, girls?” Ned asked, feeling a bit like the question might be offensive, but it did seem like it was relevant.

Peter grimaced and looked at their feet.  _ Whoops, seems I forgot to tell him something else kinda important. _

“About that… I don’t really know how any of this will change dating, but I sorta… have been hanging out with this guy that I really like. In a romantic way.” They admitted.

Ned’s jaw dropped. “What?! When? What guy! You don’t hang out with any other guys at school!”

“I don’t see him at school. He’s another vigilante, I only see him as Spiderman.” Peter explained, looking up to see Ned’s reaction, which was a comprehensive face journey as he first digested that his friend was into guys, and then that they had been hanging out with another hero, which  _ OMG WAS SO COOL _ , and then that the guy didn’t actually know who they were outside the mask, and then back to  _ OMG THIS IS SO COOL! _

“So are you going to ask him out? Or are there like, rules about not dating other heroes? If there are you should ignore them, the only thing that could possibly make you being Spiderman even cooler is if you had a super-powered boyfriend. Wait, does he actually have powers? I guess not every hero has powers. Does he?” Ned rambled out, barely pausing to take a breath.

For a minute Peter just looked at their friend, taken aback that apparently this latest in a series of major changes to who Ned thought they were was being taken so smoothly. But then again, they probably should have realised that nothing would ever by more relevant to Ned than the more crucial topic of their life as a vigilante. Which was exactly why they were best friends.

“He does have powers, though I think he would do just fine without them. He’s way better at fighting than I am.” Peter enthused, feeling a warmth in their stomach that they could talk to someone about how great they thought Wade was. MJ listened to their woes and worries about their relationship, but Ned would actually appreciate Deadpool from a pure nerd standpoint.

“No one’s better at fighting than you.” Ned scoffed. “Unless he can pick up a bus without breaking a sweat too.”

“Well, no. But he could get hit by a bus and be fine after. That makes us even, doesn’t it?” Peter reasoned. After thinking for a minute, they picked up their phone and sent a quick text.

_ Peter: Hey have you been hit by a bus before? _

_ 💀 💦 _ _ :Ooohh y? planning a little foreplay for our date wen I get back? cuz I’ll gladly get hit by yr love bus any day ;) _


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I say this like every update but gods your comments give me life. I literally reread them several times a day. I am a writer and I live off of validation not oxygen, and especially as a trans person how much you guys like this really touches me in a special deep and tingly place. Okay, so this chap we get to see the long awaited reaction Tony has to finding out his protégé is more than meets the eye (shut up I love those movies) Also, I know technically they aren't based in the tower anymore but come on, the logistics of operating out of a compound like two hours out the city must be so stupid. So I'm saying unless there's like a reason, they are meeting at the tower where Tony spends most his time. BTW why are all of Tony's AI's literally the best characters in the entire MCU? I would die for DUM-E and the literal worst decision they ever made was getting rid of JARVIS for Vision. K, shutting up now. ENJOY!

Chapter Twenty Two

The rest of the week was beyond weird. Ned continued his super awkward overtures of allyship, MJ continued to aggressively reaffirm however Peter was presenting that given day, and Flash continued to give them weird looks and throw out snarky comments when no one was around to catch him.

They spent a couple days waiting for some kind of ball to drop with Aunt May, sure if nothing else she would want to have a Serious Conversation at some point. To their relief she continued to adapt without needing much input from them, usually casually asking in the morning “Is it a Petey or a Penny day?” and then continuing through the day without needing any further explanations from them. 

It was actually a little strange, May had always been great, but she usually needed at least a minimal amount of information to operate on. Of course, just when it was starting to really puzzle them, MJ casually mentioned that she had been swapping recipes with her to prepare for an experiment in pescetarianism she was planning. Which meant that at some point, their enterprising friend had gone through their phone and stolen their aunt’s number.

There was a moment of paranoia at exactly what the two had to discuss other than shrimp scampi recipes, but they figured so far it seemed the correspondence had only been to their benefit, and beyond that they probably didn’t want to know.

It seemed to Peter like coming out had gone sort of like they had tripped down a hill and somehow found themselves falling all the way down without getting really any scrapes or dirt on them, maybe even finding a stray flower now adorning their hair, and had landed safely at the bottom without really knowing how any of it happened. Of course as soon as they felt like they were falling into any kind of rhythm, Mr. Stark texted in the middle of third period and said Happy would be waiting for them with a car after school.

Before they would have been stoked to spend the afternoon at their ‘Internship’, catching up with their mentor and following up on the projects they had been working on together. They hadn’t actually seen him since before their decathlon trip, not in person anyway, and it would probably give the billionaire hives to hear it, but they had missed him. 

That being said, they really did not want to see the look on his face when they walked into the lab wearing their ‘mom jeans’ as MJ still insisted on calling them, and their purple sweater, with a pair of glittery flower shaped hair clips in their curls that Aunt May gave them the day before saying they were ‘practically vintage and deserved to be wandering around a high school again’ following it up with lots of reminiscing about school dances, scrunchies, and band practice.

At the final bell they dragged themselves to the front of the school, mentally reminding themselves that they once chased down a semi-homicidal arsonist armed with a homemade flame-thrower with a fraction of the dread they were currently feeling, and honestly _get it together!_ Happy met them at the side of the car, door already opened, and merely gave the teen a questioning lift of an eyebrow before visibly noping out of caring about something as petty as what the teenaged vigilante was wearing, and walking around to the driver’s side with a dismissive shrug.

The ambivalence somewhat cheered them and they did their best to not get riled up with nerves as they waited through the drive to the tower. Once they were let in they said goodbye to Happy as he rushed away to attend to something not teenage related, and headed to the elevator.

“Hey, Friday. Can you take me to the lab?” They asked, looking up to the ceiling.

“Good afternoon, Miss Penny. Nice to see you as always, Boss is ready and waiting for your arrival.” The AI greeted. They straightened up in surprise at the moniker.

“Uh… okay. Thank you, Friday.” They weren’t really sure which part they were thanking her for, but felt a rush of affection and relief. Karen and Friday were some of the nicest ladies they had ever met, which was kind of funny since they were artificially created by Mr. Stark.

“Of course. Have fun.” She responded as the elevator opened to the lab.

“Kid, that you?” Mr. Stark hollered from somewhere they couldn’t see.

“Yeah, where are you?” They asked, wandering in. The lab was in its usual state of madness, detritus of at least half a dozen projects scattered around, and no genius in sight.

“Under here! Hey, come use your spider thing to lift this up, I can’t reach the other panel.” Mr. Stark’s voice came from under what looked to be some kind of reactor powered generator.

They hurried over to follow his instructions, using one hand to lift up the machine and the other to hand the inventor various tools he asked for, listening as he started explaining exactly what he was doing and how it would work once he finished it. He didn’t actually emerge for another ten minutes, and when he finally did and stood up, covered from his ripped up jeans to his messy hair in grease and grinning, Peter had completely forgot they were nervous to see him and was caught up in the thrill of building.

“Thanks for that, kid. Wasn’t my finest moment putting this here instead of somewhere I can rig it up for access. Must be too used to having super strength on tap. You like, vacuum under the couch and stuff for your aunt, right? If you don’t you should. The domestic uses for you guys are so much better than the whole crime fighting thing.” He rambled, business as usual.

“I mean, not really? People vacuum under their couches?”

“Honestly I got no idea, I have maids. Robotic ones that taught themselves how to clean with the power of internet forums and advanced AI technology because I had no idea how to program it into them. Hey, what are you wearing?” He asked, looking at them properly for the first time with a frown.

Peter froze, all the dread flooding back up their spine as they remembered they actually needed to be worried. “Uh… a sweater?”

“Yeah, I can see that, Underoos. You have something else in your bag? Cause that will get ruined in like two seconds in here. Trust me, this lab has caused many a dry cleaning bill and a mad Pepper when I wandered in here with a suit or something on.” He said with a dismissive wave.

“Oh. Right. That’s what you meant.” Peter said, giving him a bright grin.

Mr. Stark stopped flitting around the lab and met their grin with a wink. “What else would I mean? Now, hurry up and go change. I think I have some spare shirts in that cabinet over there if you need to borrow something. Chop chop. We got work to do, Penny.”

_Yeah, coming out was actually going really good so far._

When they got home hours later May watched them unload their backpack and coat with an eagle eye, and immediately spotted they were wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt that they didn’t leave in that morning.

“What’s with the band merch, Penny?”

“Mr. Stark didn’t want me to get my sweater dirty so he gave me one of his workshop shirts to wear. We spent the afternoon crawling around under a generator trying to fix a problem converting the power from the-” The took off on a long winded technical explanation that ended up taking most of dinner and that she understood about every fourth word of, not noticing in their nerd-induced excitement as she deflated from a burgeoning momma bear act at however Tony had reacted to seeing them for the first time since they started their transition.

May honestly wasn’t sure how she ended up co-parenting with Tony Stark of all people, and knew Ben was probably judging her at least a little from the afterlife, but having to call a billionaire superhero to explain that the teen he had been mentoring had come out and she would literally set his stupid skyscraper on fire if he wasn’t nice was apparently where her life was at now. 

Tony had seemed borderline offended at the implication he would have an issue with it, but he somehow turned the conversation into a rant about all the things he had in common with David Bowie instead of actually agreeing to her somewhat ultimatum on how he was expected to treat her kid if he wanted to keep seeing them. Hence her concern about how their latest little play date had gone. But judging by the way Peter was bouncing around the kitchen like a puppy that had just gotten lots of treats, apparently she had underestimated the eccentric genius.

Ben was probably still judging her though.


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you guys know, I have cried reading some of your comments. It means so much to me that my attempt at portraying a character I love having an experience like I did is somehow touching people. If there's one thing I know, it's that fiction is a gateway to self discovery. And I did add a slowburn tag because I realised at this point I have really earned it lol. Okay, this is a shorter chapter... for reasons... Aight

Chapter Twenty Three

Deadpool blew back into town Saturday after a successful, only slightly morally ambiguous, and very profitable job. A flurry of excitable texts summoned Peter into the New York streets and across the rooftops to him, and the pair met with an effusive excitement like they had been separated for months instead of a week, and hadn’t been in contact almost the entire time. 

Peter at least had the excuse of it having been an extremely important week filled with life altering decisions, but for Wade it was just pure frustration from the fact every day he didn’t see his favourite spider was another day he didn’t confess that his fanboy crush had grown into a straight crush-crush made up of genuine romantic and emotional shit. The fact he knew said feelings were a horrible idea and he definitely wouldn’t be confessing a  _ god damn thing _ was besides the point.

“How did you fare in my absence, my arachnid amigo? Were you overtaken with pining and grief? Did you try that donut shop I told you about?” The mercenary questioned eagerly after they were finished saying their hellos.

“Yes, I did, and you were right the crullers were amazing.”

“Hmm don’t think I didn’t notice that little sidestep, Baby boy. I’ll just trust you were suitably heartbroken.” Wade said with a wink, and Peter knew under their mask they were smiling with what was probably a sickening amount of fondness at his antics.

“Honestly I did miss you. I had a… difficult week. School and people and… Just, stuff going on, you know?” They said with a vague shrug.

“Aww, wanna talk about it? Or is it a little too… unmasked for you to tell me?”

“No, not exactly…. Maybe later. We got work to do, right?” Peter wasn’t actually sure at this point if they weren’t coming out to Wade because their secret identity, or if they were keeping their identity secret still so they didn’t have to come out. Either way the other vigilante’s easy acceptance that they continued to withhold something he was openly giving was starting to sit less and less well with them.

“That we do! Ready to step that nice ass into gear and take off?”

Peter shook off the negative thoughts. It wasn’t the time to be bummed, it was time to enjoy the night out. “Aren’t I always?”

“Hell yeah! Time to make some chimi-fucking-changas!”

They spent the next few hours patrolling through the city, fighting crime and horsing around the rooftops. It was fun, but for the first time Peter actually felt an impatience to run out of criminals to truss up and grandmas to help with their groceries. Being Spiderman might be the highlight of their life, but really all they wanted to do was finish patrol and head straight to Wade’s apartment for the dinner and a movie they planned that they repeatedly had to insist to themself  _ wasn’t a date, get it together, Peter!  _

Deadpool was great, like,  _ great _ . Every fight they got into he seemed to pull something extremely fun and impressive out of his hat and leave Peter feeling all sorts of things as they watched him. Patrolling with him hadn’t lost its appeal  _ whatsoever _ , and the mercenary even seemed to be taking to heart their worries about not being careful enough as he barely got hurt all night. 

Wade though, was someone that Peter was loving spending time with and getting to know more and more. There was some irony to it that the two of them separately had enough super hero nonsense to fill the every front page of paper in the city, but the best thing they could think of might be sitting on the couch together on a friday night arguing about what the best kind of pastry was and if toaster strudel even belonged in the running. And the fact every time they hung out felt like a countdown to  _ something _ they couldn’t quite name didn’t help either. 

So that night, the P in Penny did not stand for patience. Like fate couldn’t help but mess with the very frustrated vigilantes, just when they were about to call it good for the night, a fire engine blew past them with sirens wailing, pulling them across Queens to the horrifying sight of a blazing apartment fire.

Peter was stunned for a minute, taking in the scene as firefighters rushed around, the apartment inhabitants either fleeing from the fire that was rapidly spreading or watching in horror from the sidewalks. The apartment looked almost just the same as where he lived with May, and he felt a moment of terror imagining her there.

“Spidey, you take the lower levels. I’ll go up.” Deadpool took off, prompting Peter to snap out of it and quickly follow the suggestion. They ran in, making sure anyone they passed could get out safely and helping the firemen check through every apartment to make sure no one was trapped. The longer they worked, the hotter it got and the thicker the smoke was, until it was only Deadpool’s healing factor and the built in filters of the Spiderman suit that let them continue without collapsing.

Thankfully they were able to clear the last of the building without any major problems, meeting at the middle floor and starting to make their way back down.

“You doing alright there, Baby boy?” Deadpool checked in, not liking the sight of the younger hero ash-streaked and coughing. Most everyone had run or been carried out by them before getting much more than smoke-inhalation, but by then they both were a bit on the crispy side.

“I’ll be fine, we just gotta get out of here. Like,  _ now. _ ” Peter urged, their spidey-sense warning them of the building’s growing instability.

They hurried down, the roar of the fire and the creaking and crashing of the apartment starting to collapse getting louder by the minute. Just as they reached the second to last floor and it seemed they might be alright, all the hair on the back of Peter’s neck stood up, and on instinct they shoved Deadpool the rest of the way down the stairs they were running down.

A second later, the ceiling above them fell, and everything went black.


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would say sorry for the cliff hanger but that would be a lie because I derived genuine joy from doing that to you. But I am ending your suffering! This chapter is way too good to hold back. You know that scene in Deadpool 2 when Vanessa dies? But before it makes you cry and he's just strutting around in that tight little tshirt and sweatpants looking all yummy? You know that scene? Btw other than watching the movies, this is the only other research I did for this fic, if you're curious.  
> https://youtu.be/ZlJnJ2VQT9s

Chapter Twenty Four

Peter woke up just shy of two hours later, though they didn’t know that was how long it had been, having been unconscious during the intermittent period. They had a moment of panic at not knowing where they were before registering that A, they were laying on a faded couch they could easily recognise, and B, they were in clothes that weren’t theirs but their mask was still on.

They sat up gingerly, relieved when all they really felt was a dull ache in their head. Looking around there wasn’t any sign of Wade, but beyond a slight ringing in their ears, they could hear him rattling around somewhere in the apartment.

“Peter? Are you awake?” Karen asked in their ear with a significant amount of worry for a computer.

“Yeah, I’m up. What happened?”

“You were assisting in evacuating an apartment fire and a significant amount of the collapsing structure fell on your head. Thankfully you were able to get Deadpool clear in time and he was able to dig you out and carry you to safety before you were crushed or burned to death. I would thank him if I were you.”

“Oh. Yeah, I’ll do that.” They had a moment of imagining Wade digging through a pile of ashy rubble to find them, before shaking it off with a shudder. Definitely not something to dwell on. “What happened to the rest of the suit?”

“It was significantly damaged, as were you, so Deadpool took it off and applied first aid.”

_ That explains why I’m in a pair of his pajamas… _ Peter thought, also inwardly reveling in the fact the pair of emoji pattern sleep pants and promotional liquor t-shirt they were wearing belonged to the older man. Apparently there was actually something to this whole ‘boyfriend shirt’ thing, even if Wade wasn’t their boyfriend… sadly.

“Wait, if the suit was trashed, are you okay?” They questioned, for the first time wondering exactly how the suit’s built in AI worked.

“Yes, Peter. Thank you for worrying, but while I am installed into the suit to assist you, I am not actually ‘in’ it, so I will be safely stored in my servers elsewhere in the event of it being destroyed.” Karen explained, and Peter let out a breath of relief.

“Good. One less thing to worry about then. What would I do without you, Karen?”

“Do you want me to do an analysis of that scenario or simply say I’m sure you would be fine regardless of what the results would be?”

“No, I think that will be enough. Thanks, Karen.” They said with a grimace.

“Baby boy! Is that you I hear?” Wade’s voice piped up and a moment later he wandered into the living room, changed into civvies and sporting a relieved look. “It is! You’re finally resurrected and it didn’t even take three days.”

“Nope. Wait, does that make me Jesus?” They asked with a tired grin. Wade was a pretty sight for mildly concussed eyes.

“Of course, that ass is divine.” He shot back with a half-hearted leer that didn’t hide any of his worry. “How do you feel? Light-headed? Nauseous? Smelling toast or seeing cartoon birds?”

“None of the above, but thank you for the assist.” They were quick to reassure. “Hey, if I’m Jesus what does that make you?”

“Obviously God’s perfect mistake, now stop trying to distract me with banter. A two bedroom half bath fell on your dome. I didn’t wanna take your mask off when you haven’t given me a safeword yet so I just had to trust you weren’t leaking applesauce out your ears. Did my best with the bactine and bandaids for what I could see, though.” He explained, eyes scanning over them like he was expecting to see some spontaneous hemorrhaging he had missed before.

“I promise I’m okay, Wade. I may not heal as fast as you but I’m still pretty tough. Believe it or not, I’ve had heavier bigger things dropped on me before.” 

“Alright, alright. I don’t know what the heck is bigger than a some guys living room but I hear you. You’re a big tough spider who don’t need no man, I get it.” He stopped the distracting stare down and sat down next to them.

“That’s one way to put it.” Peter hesitantly scooted over and listed to one side, slowly letting their head fall onto the taller man’s shoulder like they were hoping he wouldn’t notice. “And not an entirely accurate way. My head does hurt a little.”

Wade stopped breathing for a moment as the weight of the younger man started to warm his side. “And what can I do to alleviate your pain? Advil? Orange juice? Blowjob?”

Peter felt themself colour at the proposition. If they thought it was hard (Pun not intended, they swear) dealing with Wade’s flirting when he was in costume, somehow being able to actually see his facial expressions as he made entendres while wearing soft sweatpants and a tight blue sleep shirt in the domestic setting of his apartment was  _ so much worse _ than when he was wearing tight red kevlar and wielding dual swords.

“How about you tell me about your trip? Or at least tell me about where you went? I don’t really need to know about the business part.” They requested weakly.

“Oh, it was great! I’ve been to some fun places for work; Baghdad, Budapest, Bangkok.” He said the last one with a wink. “Jacksonville might be my fave, though. You wouldn’t believe the night life.”

“I think I might have to take your word for it.”

“You still up for dinner or do you want to head home for the night and rest?”

“No, no. I still want to stay. I didn’t wait all week for you to wander back to not get a free meal out of you. I should probably pop into the bathroom to check under my mask, though.” Peter answered, sighing at the idea of having to get up. Wade made a nice pillow. A nice, warm, muscley pillow. They might have a little bit of a concussion still.

“You know you have to actually move to do that, right?” He asked after a couple minutes when the web-slinger remained slumped against him. He was enjoying being in cuddle-territory but also really wanted to know for sure that they were alright.

“Ugh, fine.” They levered themselves up and headed to the other room, pulling off their mask once the door was safely shut.

As they suspected, they weren’t leaking brain matter anywhere and seemed to be in one piece. There was a little ash and some dried blood in their hair, whatever head wound it came from already healed enough they couldn’t tell where the source was. 

They washed up quickly, dunking their head under the sink faucet until the water stopped running grey and red. Then after a half-hearted drying with a towel they took a quick peek under their (Wade’s) clothes to see if there was any damage they hadn’t noticed. There was a little soreness here and there to hint at where some bruises had recently disappeared, as well as some band-aids and residue from disinfectant to show where Wade had tended to something, but the only thing left visible and not completely healed was some scabbed over scrapes on their hip. Of course, that’s when the bomb dropped.

Because as they studied their hip they cursed under their breath as they noticed a tear and black smudge of ash on the light blue polka-dotted panties they were wearing.  _ That they were wearing! Under their clothes! Clothes that were Wade’s! Wade’s clothes, that Wade changed them into! Which meant Wade had SEEN THEM!!!!! _   
They spent a good five minutes staring down at their hip, trying to not hyperventilate as their spidey-sense went off retroactively, like it didn’t exactly think there was any danger, but whatever was making the teenager freak out so bad had to mean there was a reason to go off. They didn’t snap out of it until there was a hesitant shave-and-a-haircut knock on the door.

“Hey, Webs? You alright in there? Need some first-aid stuff? CPR? I’m totally CPR certified.” The mercenary called through the door.

“I’m fine!” Peter called back, their voice definitely too strangled to make it convincing.

“You sure? If you need help but just don’t want me to see your face, we can figure something out. I promise I’m not tryna sneak a peek, just wanna keep my favourite masked menace upright, you know?”

_ You already snuck a peek, apparently. _ Peter thought, before chastising themself for the snide comment. It wasn’t like he meant to. Peter would have done the same if they were just trying to help an injured friend.

“I’m really fine, Wade. Be out in a sec.” They took a bracing breath and then pulled their mask back on over the top part of their face before opening the door to see Wade hovering anxiously nearby. “See? Still conscious and mobile.”

“Well, good. I think Iron Man would come murder me if you were irreparably harmed while I was with you. Sure I’d come back, but that guy seems the persistent type. If he was the dad in Taken the movie would have lasted ten minutes.” He said, turning toward the kitchen to start cooking, a grin on his face like he could finally relax all the way now. Unlike Peter, who was very not relaxed.

“Hey… Wade?”

“Yes, dear?” The mercenary didn’t look up from the fridge as he responded, which is probably why Peter had the courage to continue.

“When you changed my clothes… Did you, umm… Did you see my… You saw my underwear, didn’t you?”

Wade suddenly straightened up and slammed the fridge. “Oh! Right! That, that thing I definitely did notice and then repressed the memory of because dwelling on your choice in underwear, especially when  _ that _ -.” He cut himself off with a choked sound in the back of his throat. “Ahem. When that is the particular choice, would be extremely inappropriate. And definitely would make me revisit every encounter we have ever had and fill me with aching curiosity and-” He cut himself off again, his hands now on his hips and his gaze at the ceiling, or maybe towards the heavens, as he definitely seemed to be praying for some patience and calm. “And other  _ aching _ things that definitely would be extremely inappropriate. Is that the thing you are talking about? Or, asking about, and making me talk about? Because yes, the answer is yes. Sorry. Fuck. Sorry.” He ended the stream of strained words with his hands over his face, like he was hiding from the situation behind them. Peter could relate.

“Yeah… I guess that is what we are talking about.”

“We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. You don’t owe me an explanation.” He said, his tone something closer to normal, finally making eye contact again before hurrying to reassure. “We also totally can! If you want, I can be normal about this, I can. With like, maximum effort, but it’s doable.”

Peter took in the sight of Wade standing in front of them, in his casual clothes with all of his scars on display, standing in his own kitchen in the apartment he invited them to when he really didn’t have anything to go off of to trust them, that he carried them to when they were hurt and unconscious and took care of them while making sure he didn’t cross any of the boundaries they had set. It was so obvious Wade didn’t have any reservations between them, whether he liked them as more than a friend or not.

Exactly what was holding them back from answering that trust in kind? Why were they pretending they weren’t already half gone on this man?

_ Is this it? Should I just tell him? Should I just tell him  _ Everything _ right now?  _ They debated.

“Spidey?”

They opened their mouth to answer. “I-”


	25. Chapter Twenty Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's see, how many times can I leave you guys on a cliffhanger before it stops being fun? Seriously though, love you guys and the fact you care if I leave you on metaphorical read makes me so happy. Hopefully this chapter makes up for it! It might be my fave so far... it's one of the first chaps I planned for this fic. I am so glad we are getting deeper in to the feels because it means I can let more of my horny bastard energy out even if they are still not boning. And believe it or not this isn't even the peak of my Deadpool thirst.

Chapter Twenty Five

“I don’t always dress the way I did the other day when I came here.” Peter began, not sure how they would stumble through explaining, but tired of being a coward about it. They were a superhero! They could do this! “With the jeans and the button up and all that. Boy clothes, is what I mean. Sometimes… Sometimes I-” They stopped, the words caught in their throat.

“Take your time, Baby boy.” Wade soothed, looking at them with worry. He didn’t really know what was going on, but obviously it was important. Really, he had a feeling that the hero had been keeping something from him for a while, beyond the obvious things of course. And that was definitely his right! He didn’t owe him anything! But lately it seemed like maybe he did want to tell him? Except anytime it seemed like they were about to actually have whatever conversation was stuck between them, he would pull back. “Whatever you need to tell me, it’ll be alright.”

Peter felt a flood of affection at Wade’s understanding, and knew they couldn’t back down. “I’m not…” They pushed out an irritated huff, suddenly absolutely done with themself. Before they could second-guess it, they were reaching up and tugging their mask off, baring their face to Wade for the first time. “My name is Peter Parker. But sometimes, people call me Penny.” They said, hoping somehow the mercenary would somehow understand everything they were trying to say with the short statement. That he would make this just as easy as he somehow made everything.

“Oh.” Was all Wade could think to say, followed by a second, almost reverent “ _ Oh. _ ” There was so much to process! He knew Spiderman’s name now! And, that  _ man _ might not be quite accurate. He didn’t want to assume (not that he wasn’t an ass.) But it seemed pretty clear the younger teen was coming out to him in more ways than one. Like, four ways, maybe? And he looked so worried! As if Wade’s response really mattered. Which brought him to the other part, that he could see his face! All of it! It was such a cute face! Wade figured from what he had seen so far that Spiderman was attractive, but he wasn’t prepared for how pretty of a picture actually waited under that mask.

Wade’s breath caught as he took it in. It wouldn’t have mattered much at this point what was going on underneath the suit. There could have been two extra pairs of eyes and fangs hiding under that red spandex, and he probably still would have been into it just because _ it was his Spidey _ . But he wasn’t really prepared for how absolutely adorable he was, and in the way you just wanted to absolutely  _ ruin _ . At the last thought he quickly backpedaled his thoughts to more appropriate areas, like the fact that while he had gotten lost in the other’s eyes, Peter (God he finally got to use a name other than Spiderman!) had just looked more and more upset by the second, waiting for his response.

“It’s nice to meet you, Peter. I’m Wade.” He made himself say, like a person with manners or something. “Can I… ask what your pronouns are?”

Peter exhaled with a whoosh, not even knowing until then that they weren’t breathing. “It’s really nice to meet you, Wade.  _ Really. _ And, I’m not exactly sure? I’m kind of still figuring all of that out. I’ve been using They/Them mostly. Sort of depends on if I’m having a masculine or feminine day. But I’ve been sticking to He/Him when I’m in costume.”

Wade nodded, mentally adjusting and retroactively chastising himself for how many times he might have made them uncomfortable by misgendering them, even if he hadn’t known. “Got it. And if I ever mess up, feel free to hit me. Like, really hard. Healing factor, I can take it. Oh! Oh no! I call you Baby boy like a million times a day. God that probably made you really uncomfortable, didn’t it?”

“Actually… I kind of don’t mind it.” Peter answered shyly, wondering exactly how much they could admit to liking an endearment before it became clear exactly how  _ dear _ they found their friend. “But maybe if I’m having a fem day, not saying it like that?”

“Okay. Well, what kind of day are you having today?”

They felt their cheeks warm, idly surprised it took this long to blush. “Um. A fem one?”

“In that case, I’m really happy that you trusted me with all of this, Baby girl. I promise I won’t make you regret it.” Wade said solemnly, and Peter knew their face was definitely flaming now.  _ I’m totally not going to replay him calling me that all night long, no sir.  _ They thought with a shiver.

“You’ve been trusting me for a long time. And after tonight, just didn’t seem to be any reason to not trust you. Honestly, I kind of always wanted to tell you, I just...” They frowned, weeks of self-doubt going through their head. “I didn’t want to mess things up with you.”

“Oh, Penny. You could  _ never. _ Especially not with something like this!” Wade was quick to assert, coming over to wrap them in a hug, letting go after a moment despite the temptation to never release them. “And it would be pretty hypocritical of me. I mean, I’m Pansexual, and I’m Cis, but not exactly the most gender-conforming guy around, so. You don’t need to worry. All that is going to change is that now I really know you, and I am gunna be so respectful and on the mark it will be like I always knew! Sound good?” 

Peter let a giggle slip out. It was really nice how the older man was able to make their worries seem almost silly in retrospect. “Yeah, sounds good. Pansexual? That’s kind of like bi, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, they are synonymous. It’s kind of a whole thing, but whatever. I just went with what vibed.”

“Right. I think I might be bi. And genderfluid. At least, that’s what fit the best so far. This is still all new. I kind of  _ just _ came out."

"Wowza, that's a lot. No wonder you seemed stressed out." Wade said, face the picture of sympathy as he furiously tried to focus on being a good friend and not jumping up and down in joy and singing 'They're biiiii! My weeks of dreading hearing that they were straight in casual smalltalk were in vain! I know I don't have a chance still, but at least now I know for sure it's not cause I'm a dude!' 

Because there were some things that were way more important than the fact he was  _ never _ going to get the image out of his head of when he carefully peeled Peter out of their ruined spider suit and first saw the light blue polka-dotted silk with a lace edge covering them, and the two little pink bows tying the end of the lace-up closures stretched around their hip bones.  _ Really,  _ there were more important things... even if he couldn’t quite remember them.

Peter was thankfully not clued in to his preoccupation. "It's definitely been one thing after another. I can make sooo many 'If you told me a year ago that I would be… I'd think you were crazy!' Statements."

"Well, I am crazy."

"You know what, I’ve decided something. If rule one of the Wilson crash pad is I watch my mouth, rule two is  _ you _ watch yours and be nice to yourself.”

Wade smirked, amused by the stubborn little frown they were pointing at him.  _ God _ it was so nice to be able to see all of their face. He was never going to get tired of it. He could spend hours just memorising every line of their face like he had never seen it before. “Oh, really? Is that right, Baby girl?”

“Yup. Quid pro quo.”  _ Yes, Peter, say something clever to cover the warm bubbly feelings spilling all over when you hear him call you  _ Baby girl _ in his stupid deep voice with his head tilted down like he could just lean forward and...  _

“I’ll be the quid to your quo and you can pro me any day.”

“I am going to let you pretend that made sense.” Peter replied with a laugh.

“Won’t be the only thing I’m pretending.”

“Stop making horrible come-ons before you make my head wound spontaneously reopen.”  _ And make me forget why I’m not admitting to the last secret I’m keeping from you. _

He immediately dropped the smarmy look and started inspecting the crown of their head, putting a hand to their cheek to tilt it down. “Wait, is it still hurting? I don’t see any blood. Want me to get some cream? An ice pack? Shot of vodka?”

“I’m fine, Wade. It was a joke. Remind me to not have any more near-death experiences around you, you take the fun out of it.” They grumbled, doing their best to not completely zone out at the feeling of Wade’s wide palm resting against their face. He was being so gentle, but they could still feel how it was rough with scars and callouses from working. Another thing they wouldn’t dwell on tonight if they could help it.

“Sorry, I’m the only one allowed to have fun dying.”

“Rule two.”

Wade sighed, his eyes dropping to meet Peter’s, aware at this point he was just cradling the other’s face with no pretext. “ _ You _ are killing me, Baby girl.”

They leaned slightly into the hand with a sigh, a soft smile on their face they were sure was sickening. “Want me to stop?”

Wade let out a sigh of his own. So many things he wanted to do and say. But right after Peter A, almost died being crushed under a burning building, and B, came out to him about their civilian identity, gender,  _ and  _ sexual identity, was not the time for any of them.

“No, I don’t. But put it on hold, alright? I still owe you dinner.” He said quietly, his thumb slowly moving across their cheek and the spattering of freckles there before dropping their hand and standing up,  _ while he still could make himself walk away.  _ He thought with some censure.

Peter watched him head to the kitchen, bringing an errant hand up to trace the path his hand left. How could they have ever thought Wade would be anything but wonderful in the face of the mess of their life?

_ Maybe… Just maybe… _ They thought, not entirely sure what the rest of the thought was, but knowing it was something good.


	26. Chapter Twenty Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you guys know, I am several chapters ahead and should be posting every day until this fic is finished. Thank you so much for all of the comments! I'm glad you guys are enjoying the ride so much. Not much happening this chap, it's kind of a bridge.

Chapter Twenty Six

Peter floated through dinner and the following Matrix marathon (apparently it was a hate crime that they weren’t familiar with Keanu Reeves’ earlier works) feeling they must have somehow tricked the universe into thinking they were someone else, because teenage mutants with a whopping three dead parental figures didn’t have this good of luck, to have this big thing happen and somehow everything falls into place and everyone they cared about accepted it and just wanted to help them be happy.

Every time Wade looked at them with that special smile it hit them that he was actually seeing them  _ without their mask _ and calling them by _ their real name _ and using  _ their actual pronouns! _

They had all their friends, Aunt May and Mr. Stark, and now Wade too! Sure there were still some things they were confused about, things they needed to figure out. And school wasn’t exactly perfect, they really didn’t like being subject to the gossip machine, and Flash was still being not just a jerk but also super weird. But all of those things were beyond manageable on the Parker scale of things that were hard to handle.

When it was officially too late to be out anymore they made themself say good bye to Wade, sharing a lingering hug at the door where all they could focus on was how solid and warm his body was against them, and how he smelt like something clean and masculine under his slightly floral body wash. They made themself let go and leave, knowing Wade was just leaning against his doorframe behind them, watching them go (And probably watching their ass.)

Before heading out they had looked over the singed remnants of their suit and found that while it wasn’t wearable, the web shooters had at least survived, so they donned them and their mask again and hurried home hoping that no one saw and started a rumour that Spiderman was having pajama days.

May was working that night so they were able to slip in without any lectures on curfews for teenaged vigilantes being non-negotiable, and they thought that the night was ending on a peaceful note when Karen stopped them from taking the mask off.

“Peter? Before you go?”

“Yes? Something wrong?” They asked, instantly alert. Had she picked up something from the police scanner? Did he need to run to some emergency?

“I have some bad news. I think that Mr. Stark heard about you being at the apartment fire with Deadpool.” Karen started, sounding like she was delivering a cancer diagnosis.

“What?!” Peter squawked. “What do you mean? Why? Did he call?”

“No… But Friday has accessed my feed from tonight, and then went back and flagged footage of your other meetings with him. I don’t think she did it for her own curiosity, so one would presume Mr. Stark requested she look to see if you have been seeing him.”

“Oh. Oh no.  _ Oh no!”  _ Peter groaned, flopping dramatically onto their bed. 

They knew that eventually Mr. Stark would have to find out, especially now that Wade knew who they were. They even had some tentative ideas of how they would broach the subject, try and warm the engineer to the idea of Deadpool not being an unstable wild card who would stab you in the back as soon as help you in a fight, so that when they told him exactly what they were doing with him (Well, once they figured out  _ what the hell they were doing with Wade???) _ he wouldn’t freak out on principle and actually let them explain.

Apparently none of that was happening, because they totally had no cat to let out of a bag, they had no bag and no cat, because Mr. Stark knew, and probably had seen actual tapes of them together.

“Crap! What do I do?” They asked, asked Karen, asked themself, asked the top of their bunk bed in the hopes the answer would appear above them.

“I would suggest being honest. But not too honest. Deadpool is a  _ very _ interesting person.” Karen stressed the adjective to get it to cover the very many many things that were probably too interesting for them to want Mr. stark to know about.

“Right. Honest, but not too honest. Sounds doable. Should I call him? No, text. Actually, no I’m not doing either. It’s late. And he didn’t call, so. I’ll just wait. He will probably get in touch tomorrow. Or if he doesn’t, I’ll bite the bullet and do it. Tell him I need to talk. Ugh, come on, Spiderman! I just did something super cool and brave and it went great! I should be happy and totally up for facing this.” Peter rambled, Karen occasionally making thoughtful noises in their ear. “But I guess it’s different. Wade could have not reacted great, but the worst that could happen is that I wouldn’t get to see him anymore. Which, would be monumentally messed up. Not the end of the world, though. Worst case if Mr. Stark freaks? He stops talking to me, stops mentoring me, no more workshop stuff, maybe no more super suits, hell he could try and barr me from being Spiderman!” By the end they were almost hyperventilating, mind racing at exactly how bad the situation could get. He was just starting to trust they could handle themself as a hero! Less of the training wheels stuff, less checking up on them all the time to make sure they weren’t chasing any fish too big. What if he decided that trusting Deadpool meant their whole judgement was flawed?

“Penny, calm down. Breath.” Karen soothed, dimming the mask’s display slightly and pausing any of the moving icons. “Mr. Stark is a good man. He cares about you. If he gets upset, it will only be because he cares. I’m sure if you just talk to him, it will work out.”

Peter tried to do as she said and breathed, trying to dispel his burgeoning pity party. She was right. Mr Stark was great. Since the whole Vulture thing he had been amazing about being around and helping with anything they needed. He acted like he was allergic to feelings, but he didn’t actually hide that he was fond of his protege. Peter just needed to trust that he would listen.

“If it comes down to it, I could make him meet Wade. He would have to be at least a little charmed if he got to talk to him. If nothing else it would show he isn’t an axe murderer.”

“With all due respect, Peter. That sounds like something that could very easily backfire. Just saying. Wade is very nice but I’m not sure how good he is at censoring himself.” Karen said delicately.

“Yeah…” A number of more colourful comments went through their head. “Yeah.”

They said good night to Karen and went to bed. In the morning they rolled over and reached for their phone with a feeling of dread, not really surprised to see a text was waiting from Mr. Stark. Opening it revealed a simple instruction to be ready for pick up from Happy at ten, and the somewhat more ominous follow up of  _ Don’t be late. Seriously. And make sure to bring what’s left of the suit. _

They got up with a feeling of dread, sure shit was about to hit the fan.  _ Let’s see, do I want to be wearing my turtleneck or my blue blouse when Mr. Stark eviscerates me? _ Peter wondered idly, looking through their closet.  _ Turtleneck. I can let the collar swallow me whole if it gets too bad. _ They decided, getting dressed with a feeling like they were heading to their own funeral.

After breakfast they stuffed the spiderman gear into their backpack and anxiously waited for Happy, ending up heading down to meet him way too early and having to wait on the curb. When the man pulled up he got out to let Peter in to the back seat with a pensive frown.

“I don’t know what you did, Kid. And I don’t want to know. But… yikes.” He said simply before going back to the driver’s side and not talking for the rest of the trip.

Peter did their best to disappear into the car’s leather seats, but sadly was still present when they arrived at the tower and they had to head in. Once in the elevator they hesitantly called out “Friday?”

“Miss Penny.” The AI responded, somehow managing to make the two word greeting sound very uncomfortable and maybe a little guilty. “Boss is waiting on the main residential floor… I can slow the elevator trip if you would like.”

They sighed. “Not much point, I guess. Might as well get this over with. Thanks, though. I appreciate it.”

“Of course. Good luck.” A moment later the elevator started zooming up, and before long opened to the familiar sight of the part of the tower Mr. Stark spent most of the time he wasn’t in his workshop.

“In the living room, Kid.” His voice called through the floor.

With a gulp, Peter stepped out the elevator and went to face their fate.


	27. Chapter Twenty Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I am super sorry today's is so late! I was visiting family for halloween and literally am in front of my laptop for the first time today. And I left you on a cliff hanger too! Apparently I was getting into the spooky spirit by being evil. As an apology, this is a two parter double update woo! Haven't done that before, have I? Btw thanks for paying all that respect, really warmed the cockles of my heart. Okay, onward! Will Tony murder Wade with a shotgun, or will he give Penny away at their wedding?

Chapter Twenty Seven

They walked in to the sight of Mr. Stark reclined on the couch with a casual air, a Starkpad in one hand. A cursory look at the screen showed them it was paused on a feed from their suit.

“Hey, Mr. Stark. Good morning, how are you? ”

The genius didn’t do them the favour of humouring the polite greeting. “What kind of day are you having?” He asked without looking up from the pad, which he had pushed play on.

“Um… a fem one?” They answered, watching Deadpool laugh on the screen.

“So, Penny. You are going to have to explain some things to me. Because, from where I’m standing, it sure looks like I went to my little hero-in-training and said ‘Hey, this guy who is wandering around the city that you stumbled upon? He’s a dangerous psycho and literally can’t be killed. And I don’t want him to take his two pointy swords and make your insides in to outsides. So please stay away from him’ And then you turned around and did literally the opposite. Am I wrong? Am I somehow misunderstanding  _ this? _ ” He finished, brandishing the pad as it played a clip of Wade throwing a brick at a fleeing mugger.

“It’s not… like that. He isn't like that. And he had already had plenty of chances to do something bad that he didn’t take! I know what you said, but I knew him and already could tell he would never hurt me!” Peter defended.

“Oh! Okay, I see. So the part that I’m misunderstanding is that you were lying. When I asked if you knew who he was, and you didn’t say anything. That was you lying to me.” Mr. Stark said with a smile that was more barring his teeth.

“You… didn’t figure out that I was already seeing him?”  _ Crap, crap, crap on a stick! _ They suddenly remembered Karen’s advice to be honest but not  _ too _ honest.

“No, I didn’t go through all of the footage, and Friday didn’t tell me. And just so you know your suit AI, Karen? She refuses to say anything on the subject and I didn’t even know she was capable of lying to me with her coding, so congrats on inspiring her to defy her own programming.” 

“I was going to tell you. I was!”

“And when exactly was that? When you officially became your own little Avengers? Why not throw in Daredevil and the Human Torch, go for an all red theme?” Mr. Stark scoffed, throwing the pad down onto the couch. “That’s a great way to finally fix your reputation.”

“I was going to tell you once I, I don’t know, figured out how to tell you.” They said lamely.

“Yeah, well maybe you had trouble with that because there _ isn’t a right way _ to tell me you have been doing something you know I would  _ never _ be okay with! Jesus, Kid! What would your aunt say? Does she know you have been running around in the night with some heavily-armed homicidal clown?”

“Well, no. I haven’t gotten around to telling her either. But I’m going to! And stop talking about him like that, he’s my friend!”

“Your  _ friend?” _ He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “So it’s worse than I thought, you aren’t just palling around with him while doing your spider thing, you actually think you two are  _ friends _ ? Please tell me you weren’t stupid enough to tell him who you really are.”

“I’m not stupid, and he is my friend! He’s a good man, and yeah he has issues but so do all of us! No one who runs around in a costume punching people is stable! What makes him so special that he doesn’t get any benefit of the doubt?” Peter demanded, their own anger properly rising to meet the older man’s.

“Because the rest of us are actually heroes! Instead of hired guns who just happen to sometimes do something good by accident!” He shot back.

“Why do you get to decide who is and isn’t a hero? You don’t know him, and I do, and I’m telling you he’s the guy I want by my side, in or out of the Spiderman suit!” They yelled, immediately knowing the admission was far too telling.

Tony froze. Suddenly he wasn’t in his living room arguing with an incorrigible teen who seemed to be courting death-by-immortal-glock-toting-assassin, he was on a helicarrier arguing with a different enhanced upstart, being told that he wasn’t a hero based on judgements by people who didn’t really know him. There was a time he wasn’t Iron Man, there was a time he was just another rich mess in the tabloids with the nickname ‘Merchant of Death’, and there was also a time that he was doing everything he could to put that behind him but no one would see it. When did he go from working against everyone’s expectations and demanding that others couldn’t say what he could and couldn’t be, to doing  _ just that _ to others?  _ God! Am I getting old? _

“Damn it, Penny.” He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “Way to make me a machine to rage against.”

“What?”

“You better not be confused because you don’t get the reference, I swear. The Nine Inch Nails conversation already almost killed me.”

Peter shifted uncertainly, shoulders still drawn up with a big frown on their face, their mentor’s sudden change in attitude throwing them. “Of course I know who that is, they’re on twitter.”

“I should have trapped you under a cup and released you into the wild like any other spider you find wandering around.”

“Mr. Stark?”

“Sit down.” He ordered with a wave of his hand. When they hesitantly complied he continued. “How long has this been going on? No more lying, no more omitting, no more me having to check the freaking nanny cam to find out what you have been doing behind my back. You say you know him, you trust him? Then tell me everything so I can understand why.”

_ Oh, that’s not happening.  _ Peter thought immediately.  _ No way I’m telling him anywhere near  _ everything, _ because that would be the definition of TMI. But it seems I’m on a roll with spilling all my beans on people. _ “I met him right after Berlin. He was after some drug dealer in my neighbourhood. Then I saw him again after the whole weapons dealer plane crash thing. He said he was a fan of”  _ my ass _ “my work as Spiderman. And he was really nice,” _ and attractive and funny _ “so we kept meeting up, and he’s helped me a few times” _ and saved my life _ “on patrol. And he trusted me with his name, and how he became Deadpool, and he even let me come to his apartment!” They stressed the last parts.

“Okay but everyone knows Wade Wilson is the guy under that mask. And him being a fanboy who wanted to tag along with you doesn’t prove anything. And-” He stopped and looked at them with wide eyes. “Wait, did you say you went to his place? Penny, have you never heard of stranger danger? Secondary locations?”

“I did go to his place and he was perfectly polite!” Or at least what counted as polite for the eccentric mercenary. “And you know he isn’t actually that much older than me? So, thanks for making him sound like a guy in a trench coat with a van.”

“He isn’t polite, he’s sniffing around my kid.” Mr. Stark grumbled. He might be mature enough to admit he didn’t get the full picture of whatever was going on, but he was also mature enough to know part of that picture included the way Deadpool’s eyes would linger on Peter in those surveillance tapes, and the sort of icky earnestness in the tone the kid was using when talking about him.

“Your kid?” Peter prodded with a shy smile.

“Shut up.”

“Fine. But I’m telling you, he isn’t what people think.” They took a deep breath, putting aside the warm feelings at Mr. Stark being all parental towards them. “What did you hear about last night?”

“I heard you and your new sidekick ran around an apartment fire like it was a playground. Remind me to check that the filters in your suit worked right. Before you trashed my masterpiece that is.”

“Exaggeration but whatever. Look… don’t freak out-”

Tony rolled his eyes so hard he might have pulled something. “Why are you starting a sentence with don’t freak? That’s just an invitation for me to stop humouring you and start flipping out again.”

“Don’t! No flipping out! I just meant, obviously I am fine now, so don’t worry. But I did get into some trouble and got knocked out.”

Mr. Stark immediately straightened up and looked at them in disbelief. “Excuse me?!”

“I repeat that I am fine! But I wouldn’t have been if he wasn’t there and didn’t help me. He got me out, carried me all the way to his place and patched me up.”

“Hmph. Okay I will admit that that is slightly trustworthy behaviour.” He said begrudgingly.

“And the whole time I was passed out, he was super respectful, and careful, and made sure he didn’t see my face because I hadn’t taken my mask off around him yet. I mean, I took it off and let him know who I was when I woke up. But my point is! You think he’s dangerous, and I’m telling you he had me unconscious on a couch in his home, and no one even knew I was there, and he didn’t hurt me, he didn’t even take the opportunity to find out my identity. All he did was put bandaids on me that I didn’t even need because I healed so fast and then he made me really yummy pasta because apparently he thinks the treatment for concussions is carbs.” They finished the impassioned speech by flopping back on the couch and crossing their arms, knowing it probably made them look like a pouting kid but not caring. Whatever Mr. Stark said, they  _ knew _ Wade. And he was worth standing up for.


	28. Chapter Twenty Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, part Ni. How did we feel about Tony bringing out the Iron? God that sounded different than I meant it too... Here's some just straight banty Irondad as a chaser, with a side of Wade being lovable and making really uncomfrotable but not wrong jokes.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Tony studied Peter while digesting the case they had made. He had to admit Peter seemed to have a knack for good intuition. He sort of wondered if it was because their enhanced fortune-telling-spider thing, but knew it was probably just a virtuous-and-annoyingly-adorable Peter thing. And it was very hard to not waver in the face of wide eyes and a belief that being given food was irrefutable proof of good intentions. They really were just a person-shaped arachnid-DNA-infused puppy.

“You are going to give me gray hairs, and while I could totally rock the silver fox thing, it’s still not cool.” He said, running his hands through said hair again before sighing. “Okay fine, I believe you when you say he isn’t Jason.” At Peter’s delighted look he was quick to shush them. “To be clear, you are still in trouble! If you are going to continue cavorting with the deathless wonder, I have terms.” They nodded enthusiastically and he tried to suppress his amusement, because he was supposed to be in stern mentor mode. “You will  _ not _ lie to me again or I will put you on an actual baby monitor, you  _ will _ tell your attractive aunt about him and not sneak around anymore, and you  _ will _ tell me if he  _ ever _ steps out of line so I can test exactly how far that immortality thing stretches.”

“You… You do know that… Was that a shovel talk?” They asked in confusion.

“No, the shovel talk will come when I track the bastard down later and read him the riot act because, and I really will put you in a glass jar if you tell anyone I said this,  _ you are my kid _ and he  _ has _ been sniffing around you.”

“We’re just friends.” Peter said weakly, his face a little warm for a variety of reasons.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a witty retort. Now go get what’s left of your suit, I was serious about checking the filters worked. Thanks for the test run I didn’t ask for, by the way, not that I’m not going to take advantage. I’m not putting myself through all of this just to lose you because you have to find all the funnest ways to die.” He grouched.

“You know, it’s not like I went out of my way to end up in a burning building.”

“I believe you. I also believe that you are getting me back for that ‘Be better than me’ thing I said to you and now fully regret by accumulating more near-death experiences than I have. Suit. Lab. Now.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.” They replied with a smile. 

Mr. Stark could complain and make fun of them all he wanted, because he had  _ listened, _ and instead of yelling (much) or banning them from seeing their friend or saying they weren’t going to get a new Spiderman suit, they were calling Peter  _ his kid _ and taking them down into the lab to work like it was any other day.

When they got into the elevator Peter wasn’t able to stop smiling the whole time, even when they got a discouraging frown in return.

“Hey, Friday. We are going down into the lab.” They said.

“Of course, Miss Penny. Have fun.”

“Thank you, Friday.”

“Stop making friends with my AIs. You already corrupted Karen, which by the way I would love to know how you did that. You didn’t hack her, did you? Or have your little friend do it?” Mr. Stark asked suspiciously.

“No! Of course I didn’t, that would be so mean.” They asserted as the elevator dropped them off. “She told me that she wouldn’t tell you because she thought he was good for me, and you programmed her to help me. So really, it wasn’t even me. It was that she liked him.”

“Well I messed up making her then, because she obviously has flawed taste in people.”

“Are you this mean to all of your kids or just us?”

“Keep it up and I’ll decide  _ all _ of the safety measures in the suit need testing. Don’t test me, Penny.”

“Just so you know, Miss Penny.” Friday piped up. “Boss threatens to donate the bots to UCLA at least twice a week and tells me I would be better off as the operating system for a cappuccino machine just about as often.”

“You are all traitors and I am going to abandon all of you to live in a villa in Italy where there is no one to annoy me.”

“That sounds boring.” Peter quipped as they got set up and they handed over the shredded remains of their suit.

He sighed dramatically. “It would be boring, but at least I wouldn’t have to see you abuse my tech anymore. Look at this!” 

“I think maybe it would be more fair to blame the apartment fire than me.”

“We’re in my workshop, my rules, which means I get to blame who I want. Friday get me scans while I go over life support, and bring up the blueprints for Spider PJ’s Mark 6.5.”

“Did… did you actually call my suit pajamas?”

They spent the next few hours going over the wrecked suit and then doing some tweaks to the newest design Mr. Stark had created. After that they got some burgers and waited for the suit to render.

Halfway through lunch when Mr. Stark reminded them “Seriously, tell your aunt when you get home or I will have you grounded until you get your first PHD.” Peter remembered his earlier threat against Wade. As subtly as they could they took out their phone and shot him a text.

  
  


_ Peter: So don’t freak out. _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : Spooky start but ok. Wats up? _

_ Peter: Mr. Stark found out we’re friends and wasn’t exactly stoked. _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : Uh oh. Wat hapnd? Do I need to rescue u from a tower? Did he get a chastity belt? _

_ Peter: Eew. No. We talked and it’s okay now. But. _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : But? Your butt? My butt? Iron Mans butt? _

_ Peter: Quiet this is serious. He said he’s gunna find you to talk. Actually the phrase he used was ‘track the bastard down’. _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : That doesnt sound to bad. Bastard could be a friendly endearment _

_ Peter: He also made some vague threats of violence but I think he was mostly kidding. _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : Im sure its fine. If he was rlly gunna hurt me he probs wouldnt hav been vague. _

_ Peter: Well I told him that you were my friend. And about how great you are. So hopefully he will be… well not nice. But I don’t think you need to like, flee the country. _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : Awww your makin me blush Webs. You stood up for me wit Daddy _

_ Peter: And now I’m regretting it because you called Mr. Stark… that. Gross _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : Oh cum on, in this day and age evryone has daddy issues. But good to know hes not the one you want to work them out with ;) _

_ Peter: GROSS _

_ 💀💦 _ _ : The spider doth protest too much _

“I don’t know what your face is doing right now, or what you could possibly be reading that would make it do that, but stop before I get a rash.” Mr. Stark complained, tossing a fry at their head.


	29. Chapter Twenty Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Happy halloween! This is not a seasonal chapter because I did not plan ahead that well lol. We are continuing our adventures in parenting! How did you guys like Tony trying to be a responsible adult? And I'm sorry but I just had to make a daddy joke somewhere and who else but wade could have been the one? Now it's May's turn! I feel kind of bad for them, Peter gets into so many shenanigans.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Peter headed home, and honestly what they really wanted to do was immediately yeet themself across New York to try out the new suit, which wasn’t all that different from the old one but they were still excited to give it a spin and break it in like a pair of clean sneakers. 

Unsurprisingly they weren’t actually brave enough to test Mr. Stark’s patience and knew if they didn’t go have a very not fun conversation with their aunt, he would probably somehow know and make them pay for it.

“Hey… May?” They poked their head into her bedroom and prayed she would say she was too busy to talk so they could table the many layers of awkward that were about to happen.

“Whats up, Kiddo?” She greeted, looking up from her laptop.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

May narrowed her eyes at them. That was not great to hear. Their lives were too god damn weird for ‘talks’ to not usually involve mortal peril or aliens or mutants or various other things she couldn’t figure out how to deal with by reading parenting forums. Not to mention that Peter was allergic to talking about things they didn’t want to (evidenced by the fact they managed to come out and start transitioning while doing everything they could to avoid actually discussing it) so usually by the time they finally got to talk the issue was already at the point of no return.

“Well, come sit down then.” She said, patting the bed next to her.

They walked over like they were being dragged and curled up against the headboard. “I’m going to preface with saying I already talked to Mr. Stark about this, and I was already going to tell you but I am bringing it up right now because he said I had to. But I would have told you soonish either way.”

She made a mental note to interrogate Tony Stark in the near future. “Kay? And?”

“I met another vigilante a bit ago, and we are friends, and I’ve gone to his place a few times and he also kind of knows who I really am now. And I also maybe like him as more than a friend.”

She pursed her lips. Closed her eyes for a moment. Took a deep breath. “Alright. Let’s go over all of that bit by bit. You met him as Spiderman? Is he one of the local heroes then?”

“Well, not exactly. He works all over the world, he’s more like… I guess a Black Widow type. Without SHIELD. He lives here, though. He’s been helping me patrol sometimes, when he’s in town.”

“Are you going to say his name at any point?”

“Umm… well his name is Wade.”

“And his  _ other _ name?”

“... Deadpool.”

“That’s not super friendly. As far as aliases go.”

“I think it has something to do with the fact he can’t die.” Peter explained awkwardly.

“Come again?”

“Well, he can fight really well. But his  _ thing _ is that he heals from anything really quickly, even if he dies he comes back after a minute.”

_ Great, someone I don’t have to worry about dying on the poor kid. _ May thought, barely holding back a snicker at the morbid thought.

“Could be worse, I guess. So next part. You are friends and you have been to his place. Was it an apartment? Does he live alone?” She was only a little successful in keeping any parental judgement out of her voice.

“Yeah, we are friends. He’s pretty great. And I know, I know, I’m not supposed to go to people’s houses without asking and you meeting them first. And I know you won’t be super happy to hear he has his own apartment. But in my defense, I’m not twelve anymore, and also I have super strength.”

“You don’t get to just invoke Spiderman every time you break a rule, Peter. Getting bitten by a radioactive spider doesn’t mean you don’t have to listen to your parents anymore.” She lectured, a sudden need for a glass of wine overtaking her.

“I know that, I’m just saying it’s not like I’m the average kid who can end up on a milk carton. And if anything, I’m safer with him than I am alone.”

She stared them down for a moment before visibly deciding to let the rule-breaking go. “If he lives alone, exactly how old is he?” She might tease them about dating but that didn’t mean she didn’t still feel a little like they were still too young for someone to be seeing them like that, especially if it was a grown man. One of the very few reservations May had about them transitioning is that she knew what people were like, and she had years of experience dealing with people who thought a pretty face and a skirt were an invitation.

“He’s older than me, but I don’t know exactly how old. Maybe nineteen?”

She bristled a little but tried to keep in mind it could be worse. It wasn’t common knowledge Spiderman was still in high school, and sometimes that had uncomfortable consequences. “And you like him? Like-like him?”

They flopped over and put a pillow over their face. “Do you have to phrase it like that?”

When all they got was pointed silence they made themself answer. “Fine, yes I do. I like him a lot. Maybe even more than I ever liked Liz.”  _ Might actually be downplaying it, more than a little. _

“”And does he like you? Does he… does he know?” She asked hesitantly. “You said he knows who you are.”

“Yeah, I told him everything the other night. He was really cool about it! He’s kinda weird, but also really respectful about important stuff. I don’t really know if he likes me, though. I mean, we are getting really close. And he, you know. Flirts with me. But I don’t know if he actually means it or he’s just one of those people.” They pressed the pillow down like they could smother their embarrassment at discussing this with their aunt.

“What do you say when he flirts?”

“I don’t say anything, or I’ll make a joke. I’m pretty hopeless at coming up with something better.”

“In my experience, usually if people flirt with you a lot, even if they’re joking, they kind of mean it and are just waiting to see if you will flirt back. My guess is that he’ll keep not meaning it right up until he knows for sure you would actually be okay with him having a genuine interest in you.” She advised, inwardly cringing a little at the thought of what that ‘flirting’ might look like. Hopefully nothing too bad, she didn’t think Peter would like someone who was rude the way boys could be sometimes.

“Either way, if you really want to know, the best option would be to talk to him about it.”

“You don’t understand exactly how much I  _ can not _ do that.” Peter stressed.

“Come on, I know you’re braver than that! You’re Spiderman! Spiderman isn’t afraid of being rejected, right?” 

“Actually Spiderman is very afraid of that.”

“You fight criminals.”

“Criminals can only hurt my body, rejection hurts my emotions. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words are why I have low self esteem and social anxiety.” Peter recited factually.

“ _ That _ seems a bit dramatic. And also makes me think I should ask Tony to find you a therapist.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s just cause I’m Gen Z.” They sighed and finally removed their pillow barrier against the world. ‘But I get it. I’ll consider  _ maybe possibly thinking _ about saying something to him.”

“Good enough for me. I’ll take it.”

“So… are you mad at me?”

“I’m not thrilled obviously. And I’m guessing there are some superhero politics here that I’m not quite understanding the extent of. But you did come to me, even though it was hard. And I’m guessing if you talked to Tony already, if it was really a problem then he would have shut it down.” She answered, suddenly tired out. “I want to trust you, Penny. You make it hard on me. If that’s because of the hero stuff, or part of you growing up, I don’t know. But I don’t want to be one of those parents who has no idea what’s going on in their kid’s life.”

“I’m sorry. Really. I’m working on it, I promise.” They said earnestly.

She sighed and pulled them into a hug. “I believe you. Just don’t make me ground a New York icon. Okay? And if you do get around to talking to your boy, you better bring him over to meet me after.”

“Great, another reason for me to  _ not _ tell him.”


	30. Chapter Thirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo chapter thirty and I'm feeling dirty. This chapter isn't actually all that flirty actually, I went back and forth about whether to cut this but it felt important even if it's a bit of a departure from where we've been heading. As always I did my best to write this with all the respect for the groups it portrays, mostly pulling from my own experience but knowing that no ones experience is universal.

Chapter Thirty

Thankfully by Monday it seemed like interest in whatever was going on with Peter had started to recede. The hushed whispering and pointing thing had stopped happening as often, the staring had continued but they were starting to think it was… not exactly the kind of staring they had ever had to deal with before, but an interest in them past just being a point of gossip. Flash on the other hand was actually escalating somewhat, not exactly saying things more often or worse, but Peter could almost always feel him glaring when they were in the same room, like something about their presence was just making him perpetually pissed off.

Still, it was a lot closer to the low-profile they were use to keeping, and that might have been why Monday after classes, they were surprised to notice someone come up to them as they headed out to leave for the day.

“Hey, Peter, right?” Valerie greeted them hesitantly once she was next to them.

“Yeah. Hi, Valerie.” They confirmed.

“I was wondering if you might want to talk? If you don’t, I mean you don’t have to. But if you were up to it.” She asked shyly.

“Oh.” They really had no idea what was happening. “Sure?”

Valerie led them to a nearby bench, and for a minute they sat awkwardly in silence.

“I wanted to talk to you before. But I didn’t want… people were already talking about you a lot. And I remember what that was like. I didn’t want to make it worse, if people saw us together and made assumptions.” She explained, and Peter felt a stir of guilt at how adamantly they had tried to separate themself from being ‘like her’ before coming out.

“It’s alright. It’s not like they would have been wrong.”

“So, it’s not just a rumour? I don’t want to overstep. You can tell me to shut up if you don’t want to talk me about this.” She said, fiddling with her hands instead of looking at them.

“No, it’s okay. And no, it’s not just a rumour. I started coming out a bit ago, which is why I’ve been dressing differently.”

“Would you mind telling me about it?”

“No… that might be kind of nice actually. I have people who have been helping me but… none of them…” They stopped, not sure if it was polite to say ‘Everyone knows you’re transgender so I think you will understand a little better than my friends.’

“Everyone in your support system is cisgender?” She prodded with a smile. “I get it. I only met other trans people after I came out. That’s sort of why I wanted to talk, see how you were doing.”

“Yeah. They have all been really great, though! My friends have been helping me do research, and my aunt teaches me stuff I didn’t know, since I was just a guy before. Or, thought I was a guy.”

“And now?”

“I think I’m genderfluid. That’s what I’ve been going by for now. It fit the best out of all the stuff I read.”

“What pronouns are you using?”

“They/them. I don’t mind being called by masculine terms sometimes. I don’t always feel feminine. But when I do, I think maybe when I get more used to things, I might like using feminine terms too. My friend started calling me Penny and I really like it… Is that weird?” They wondered. 

“No, not at all. Not every trans person uses one set of pronouns, and some instead will change to accommodate how they feel day to day as their gender presentation fluctuates. I myself identify as a transgender girl and only use feminine pronouns, but even I have days when I don’t feel exactly ‘girly’.”

“That’s good to know.” They felt a little like they were stepping into a foreign country only knowing some of the language and almost none of the local customs.

“So, you are figuring out pronouns and what labels you like. And started doing things with your presentation, dressing different and that kind of thing. Have you been up to anything else?”

“Umm… Not really? Is there more to it?” They asked uncertainly.

“Well, depending on how on-board your legal guardians are, there is also the legal and medical side.”

“Eh, what?”

“Well, in the state of New York you are allowed to change your gender marker on legal documents like your birth certificate or drivers license to gender neutral, or you could even choose female if you thought that would make you more comfortable. And there is also options for medically transitioning, most of them have to wait until we are older, but if you have parental consent you can have gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy. I’ve been doing that for a while.” She explained, less shy now that she was on a roll.

“Wow… that’s a lot.” Was all they could think to say. They sort of knew in some part of their mind that people did stuff like that, but hadn’t thought that it now applied to  _ them. _

“It can be pretty overwhelming. But you just have to keep in mind it’s all so you can feel good about yourself and be happy. So there isn’t a right or wrong way to do any of it.”

“Could I really.. do any of that when I’m not exactly a guy, but not a girl either?”

“Of course you could. Gender is a spectrum. I know this one person through my clinic, they were assigned female at birth and identify as non-binary, they are on testosterone and had top surgery not that long ago, but most of the time they present really feminine. It doesn’t have to be about, oh I need to look like a guy or oh people now expect me to look like a girl. It’s just whatever you feel is right. Passing only matters if it matters to  _ you. _ ”

“I don’t actually know if I could do any of the medical stuff.” They suddenly remembered a  _ very _ outstanding variable to medical care for them. “I have a… medical thing. That makes some stuff different. A… genetic condition.” The condition being that the genes weren’t human...

“Hmm. Yeah, I don’t know about that. I can give advice or tell you what others have told me, but I’m definitely no expert. Just think about it, I guess. And if you decide you might want to do it, go and see someone who can help. Do you have a primary doctor?”

_ No, I have a medical wing that the Avengers let me use. _ They thought awkwardly. “Kind of. I should be able to talk to someone if I decide to.”

“Try not to stress about it. It takes some people a loooong time to figure out everything. We are probably pretty lucky to start transitioning so early in our lives, I’ve heard of some people who went like, decades no knowing why they felt different or that they could be who they wanted to be.”

_ Why does that sound vaguely like what having super powers can be like? _ “I guess so.”

“Hey… Do you want my number? I don’t wanna be like ‘Hey we are both trans so obvi we have to be friends!’ but like, you seem nice and I would like to be friends.” She asked with a sheepish smile.

“Of course! That would be really cool. You seem super nice too.” They were quick to say. “I mean, you don’t know me but you went out of your way to see if I needed some help.”

“It’s not a big deal.” She waved it off with a blush. “Just paying it forward. I help you, maybe one day you help someone else, eventually the world gets a little better for people like us.”

“That’s really cool. Like, something a hero would say.”

“Pfft, no way. It’s not like I’m Spiderman or anything!” She exclaimed with a laugh that turned into confusion when Peter choked on nothing and looked off to the side with an odd expression. “What’s the matter? Do you not like Spiderman?”

“No… just, it’s kind of funny that that’s the hero you would use as an example.”

“Well, isn’t everyone at our school obsessed with him after he saved the decathlon team? Wait, weren’t you there?”

“No, I wasn’t. I was uh… busy.”

“Wow that sucks. You missed your chance to meet him!”

“Yeah… bummer.”


	31. Chapter Thirty One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, back at it again with posting before it's almost midnight lol. I actually should be posting earlier until this is done, I have almost all of it written and edited and have switched mostly to working on my nanowrimo project. Jsyk I may have written a fun little extra that I will post once the official story is done ;) Coming up, whaaat more panty shenanigans??? Did you think I was out of ways to torture poor penny? Well I am DEF not. Hope you guys enjoy the surprise guest!

Chapter Thirty One

In the name of trying out their new and improved suit, Peter had begged off their usual mandatory Spiderman free Monday. May wasn’t exactly thrilled but she also knew when to make allowances so she could cash them in later. Sometimes raising a teenager was like a hostage negotiation.

It was a pretty good day for it, apparently New York wasn’t having a case of the mondays because there was plenty for them to do. By the time the sun went down the suit was feeling pretty tried and tested. Of course, when a robbery turned into a high speed chase that seemed to drag them all over the city, they felt like maybe the suit was getting a little  _ too _ tested. Thankfully they were eventually able to stop the get-away car from  _ getting away _ , with only a little property damage and thankfully no one run over.

Once they were sure the police had taken over the situation, they went to the rooftops after acquiring an armful of cart hotdogs at a superhero discount to replenish and catch their breath. It was entirely on them that they didn’t think about exactly  _ which _ part of town the car chase had led them into.

“You usually don’t come into my turf.” A gravelly voice announced behind them.

They spun around, their last hotdog meeting its demise as they fumbled it in shock, to see the other red-suited vigilante of New York.

“H-hey, Daredevil.” They greeted awkwardly, cursing internally when their voice broke. Older heroes already intimidated them enough without them being, well,  _ that!  _ “Sorry, didn’t realise I had wandered into Hell’s Kitchen. It’s been a long patrol.”

“It’s fine, I guess. As long as you haven’t caused any trouble.” He had his head tilted to the side as he said it, and he was frowning, but not in an angry way. Like he was confused. Still not  _ super  _ reassuring.

Peter didn’t know it, but it was the expression of a man with super senses being presented with a set of things that didn’t make sense. Things like the way a heart beat or bones shifted together when they belonged to someone who was still going through puberty and growing (And obviously he didn’t need super hearing to know when someone’s vocal chords were still figuring it out) Or things like the way different types of fabric shifting against each other could be incredibly varied. As well as how what the shape of clothing the fabric made changed the way it moved under clothes.

“Nope! No, sir. No trouble causing. I stopped some trouble, in fact.”

“Make sure it stays that way, Spider…” He trailed off, his head tilting a little more.

“Man. It’s Spiderman.” Peter said, a little miffed. They weren’t really new enough in town to justify a fellow hero (Who they  _ had _ met before! Even if it hadn’t been any time recent...) to not know their name.

“Is it?”

“Is… What are we talking about here?”

Matt debated letting it go, but he knew it would bother him for ages if he did, so he stopped bullshitting and switched to being blunt. “I can tell you’re a kid. Among… other things. They call you Spiderman. I’m asking if you are actually a boy.”

Peter tensed up immediately, going on guard like there was suddenly a villain in front of them. The age thing, people had figured that out. They weren’t exactly small, but when people looked past the hero thing, it wasn’t like there weren’t signs. But how in the world could he have figured out they weren’t a boy? They were Spiderman right now! And for all intents and purposes, Spiderman was, well, Spider _ man _ . It wasn’t like with the other times they came out, when they were wearing girls clothes or… someone accidentally saw them in their underwear.

“Crap!” They took an involuntary step back and covered... themself, with their hands. “Do you have like x-ray vision or something?! Gross dude! And pervy!”

You couldn’t actually see, because the whole devilish horned cowl thing, but it should have been very obvious Matt rolled his eyes. He also said a quick prayer for patience, because the kid was really trying his. “No. I do not have x-ray… vision. Far from it.” He couldn’t resist adding. Blind jokes were one of the very few things keeping Matt sane at that point in his life. Obviously they weren’t doing a great job at it, or he wouldn’t be a costumed vigilante who somehow got stuck with the name _ ‘Daredevil’  _ of all things. But Matt was a Catholic, and an orphan, and you know,  _ blind _ , and therefore well-versed in doing the best with what you had.

“Then how?” Peter asked, still suspicious, mind racing a little wondering what they were even supposed to do in a situation like this. Crap! Were they going to have to be the one to tell Mr. Stark that Daredevil was a pervert? They  _ really _ didn’t want to have that conversation, for like,  _ so many _ reasons!

“I’m enhanced, like you but, obviously different, as I’m still all human on the inside. Just a really suped up human. I can hear the difference between someone wearing cotton boxers and lace… whatever those are. Trust me, I don’t go out of my way to learn that kind of information, and more often than not it’s the bane of my very awkward existence.” He explained, for once sounding more like an actual guy instead of some sort of phantom in the night.

“Oh.” They unclenched, their hands dropping awkwardly. “That actually makes sense.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” He quipped back sarcastically.

“Ummm. Sorry. For calling you gross. And pervy.”

“It was fair, I guess. If someone actually does use x-ray vision to look at your underwear, you should probably kick them in the head.”  _ Look at me, imparting wisdom on the next generation. _ Matt thought dryly before continuing. “So are you going to answer my question or should I chalk it up to not my business and continue as normal?”

Peter opened their mouth to reply. And then closed it. And opened it again. And close.

“You okay there, Kid?”

“Yeah.. I just…” See, the problem was that they really didn’t mind that the world saw Spiderman as a man. Yes, it meant part of their identity was inherently masculine, but it didn’t feel uncomfortable, and honestly the idea of coming out as Spiderman sounded terrifying. And invasive. It was definitely on the list of ‘My business that random citizens really don’t need to know.’

But Daredevil wasn’t a random citizen, he was, well a coworker. And one who already knew  _ something _ was going on. So maybe it made more sense to tell him. But what would they do if he reacted badly? Run to Mr. Stark and not say Daredevil was a perv, but  _ a transphobe?  _ Didn’t that just sound  _ equally _ horrible.

“If you are worried I’m going to like, out you. I won’t. They call me the devil but I don’t really go in for dick moves like that. So… consider this like confession. Stays between you and me.” Daredevil said, his voice a little closer to something soothing than pure grouch. It reminded them that even if the other vigilante seemed designed to be scary in a way that was totally different from their own persona, there were still a lot of people who had been made to feel safe because of him. Also the odd phrasing stood out, and Peter suddenly had a weird and amusing thought.

“Wait, are you Catholic?” The blurted out, a giggle slipping out with the question. Was the  _ Devil _ of  _ Hell’s _ Kitchen, religious???

The silence that followed as Daredevil just stared at them was answer enough, even when he finally did speak and only said “We aren’t talking about me right now.”

They let out another giggle, and realised that they officially couldn’t be properly scared of the other hero anymore. “I’m genderfluid. I don’t plan on letting it become common knowledge, though. The only people who know are people who know me as, well the other me.”

“Okay. Do you want me to use different pronouns if we are alone? Obviously I’ll continue as before when anyone not in the know is around, but I would rather not be misgendering you if I can help it.” Obviously he had said the right thing, because he could tell Spiderman had a shy little smile on under his mask. Seems that all those extra sensitivity training courses weren’t a waste after all,  _ Marci! _

“They/them. If no one’s around, you can use They/them.”

“Got it… Can I ask if you are having any problems? Obviously it’s not my business. But, well I work out of Hell’s Kitchen. I am incredibly familiar with the problems that LGBTQ youths face, having been witness to the fall out so often. So, are you in a safe environment, and whatever.” He asked, dragging out the questions his damn conscience demanded he ask and hating every moment of it. He  _ really _ didn’t want to get more involved with other heroes, especially one that was in some sort of arrangement with the Avengers for Christ’s sake. 

Peter paused, not expecting the line of inquiry. They felt kind of, flattered maybe? That Daredevil cared enough to ask, despite the unspoken rules that private lives would just as soon stay private.

“I’m safe. My… Family, has all been really accepting.”

“Okay, good.” Matt was  _ so relieved. _ For  _ so many reasons. _ Then he immediately got un-relieved, getting a tension headache just because of the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “If you ever need help with anything… If you get into trouble, or you need help with legal stuff for your gender identity, I know some lawyers who do that kind of thing. They work pro-bono for kids, too. So. If you ever need that.” He finished lamely.

“Wow, that’s really cool. But, I don’t think I’ll need any help from lawyers? I don’t really know, I sort of haven’t been out for long. I’m still adjusting to a new normal.” Peter explained. Honestly they had very little idea why they would need lawyers all of a sudden just because they weren’t a boy. Yeah, Valerie had mentioned some things, but it all sounded so… official and adult.

“Well… Offer is there, if that ever changes. The name is Nelson and Murdock. Umm… On that note, I’m going to move on. And hopefully you will also move on to your side of town.” He said pointedly, in a way that was a little more threat than suggestion. 

“Sure! No problem, I will definitely do that. Have a-” And Daredevil had already disappeared. “Nice night.”

  
  



	32. Chapter Thirty Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! IMPORTANT !!! Content warnings for this chapter for Transphobia, Homophobia, Bullying, and a brief scene depicting non-consensual touching that is NOT sexual but nonetheless is someone touching someone in a way they aren't chill with, so please read safely. If you do not want to read that part, skip from the line "Walking to school was... interesting." to "Who knows how long"

Chapter Thirty Two

The next day Peter woke up feeling like the world was all sunshine and unicorns. School was good, their friends were great and they even had a new one in Valerie, things with Mr. Stark were better than ever, Spiderman continued to be the coolest (if an occasional head trip), and things with Wade seemed more and more like they were on the same page.

They decided to take a chance and pulled on their white pleated skirt over the pastel pink lace thong they had chosen, throwing a grey sweater on top. They hadn’t had the courage to wear a skirt to school yet, but they felt like it was time to take the leap (especially since MJ was making noise about going shopping again and they didn’t think they would get out of it this time without picking out at least one dress.)

As had become custom when they made a bold new fashion choice, they went to where Aunt May was in the kitchen munching on a bowl of cereal and waited for judgement.

“Morning… Penny?” At their nod she continued. “Penny. Have you worn that before?”

“No… What do you think?”

She took a bite of cereal and made a ‘twirl’ motion with one finger. Peter acquiesced shyly, turning in a neat circle.

“Hmm. I like it. You pull off all that light cool toned stuff so much better than I do.” May complimented warmly. She had to admit that she was enjoying the fact that she could talk about these things with Peter now. She never did that ‘I wish I had a daughter so I could girl talk’ thing, but these new things that she got to help Peter with were definitely more on her wavelength than science and superheroes. “Bit of advice though, tuck in your shirt for skirts that have a waist like that, makes for a better line.”

Peter followed the prompt with a smile, twirling more enthusiastically to show it off when they were done, earning a thumbs up and a laugh from their aunt. “Perfect, Kiddo. Now, breakfast. Hurry up so you aren’t late.”

Walking to school was… interesting. It wasn’t too bad, but if they didn’t already believe the talk about wearing skirts on the subway, they knew for sure now. Thankfully anytime some dude was really starting to creep them out, he would seem to have a moment of, wait, what exactly am I looking at? And then stop staring with an uncomfortable expression. Which… wasn’t great in its own way.

Peter wasn’t trying to pass, to use the word Valerie had when they talked. They didn’t mind too much if people could tell they were trans, as long as they weren’t rude about it. But it seemed subways might not be the best thing on their fem days.

Getting to school was anticlimactic. It seemed they had thankfully reached the threshold for things that would make their classmates take notice. The skirt apparently brought no new revelations to the masses, gained a passing compliment from MJ (“If you have to be such a prep, at least you make it look good.”) and a number of stares that were quickly averted once noticed from the still-adjusting Ned. So nothing really of note, or especially stressful. Or at least that’s what they thought until they headed to their locker at the end of the day.

It was after decathlon, the halls empty of anyone, and they were in a rush to get going so they could go on patrol. They were just putting away the last of their books when a voice rang out from the end of the hall, a blip going through their spidey-sense.

“Well, if it isn’t Penis Parker. Running off again?” Flash called, strolling over to them with a sneer. “What exactly is it that has you taking off so fast every day?”

“None of your business.” The teen tried to brush off.

“Does it have something to do with why you started dressing like a freak?” Flash was apparently not up for being brushed off. He had been quiet all day and during practice, but apparently that wasn’t a sign of future good behaviour, but a portend of him officially deciding to stop holding his tongue, MJ’s threats and glares be damned.

“I’m not a freak, Flash.” Peter replied tiredly. “I’m genderfluid, and honestly I don’t think you are actually all that ignorant about this, or genuinely a transphobe, you just want something to make fun of.”

“You say that like you make it hard for me. I don’t need to go _ looking _ for things that make you a loser. Name one thing about you that isn’t embarrassing.” He shot back, having thoroughly riled himself up at that point. “Deciding you want to be a chick sometimes is just the tip of the iceberg. Hey! Maybe I should change your nickname, I can think of another word that starts with ‘P’ that will fit whatever _ this  _ is.” At the end of the taunt he suddenly reached forward and before Peter realised what he was about to do, flipped up their skirt.

Peter’s skirt flipped up to flash the front of the thong they were wearing, and Peter jumped back with a cry, tugging it back down to cover themself and exclaiming “Oh my god!” 

Flash’s jaw dropped and both his hands flew up like that would take back what he had done, his face going pale.

“What the hell, Flash?! Why would you do that?” Peter demanded, their eyes starting to tear up in shock. “Do you seriously hate me that much!”

“I- I didn’t-” Flash stuttered, seeming shocked at his own actions.

He took a hesitant step forward. And then Peter did something they swore they would never do after they got their powers. They raised a fist and punched Flash in the face, just conscious of what they were doing enough to pull it back so instead of cracking his skull it just knocked him back into the locker behind him.

“What did I ever do to you that you can’t just leave me alone?!” Peter yelled, snatching up their backpack and running past the boy before he could recover from the hit. Suddenly they couldn’t stand being there, tears spilling over and a pathetic noise coming out of their mouth as they fled the school.

They ran for a while, at one point stopping in an alleyway just long enough to put on the Spiderman suit so they could continue swinging instead of running, brushing off Karen’s worried inquiries about what was wrong. Eventually they tripped out of a swing on their webs, barely avoiding skidding face first across the roof of an apartment, and made themself stop, knowing if they continued without calming down first they would probably end up splattered across the pavement. 

They didn’t really calm down though, instead curling up against the edge of the roof and crying with their knees drawn up and their face hidden in their arms. Karen again tried to get them to tell her what was wrong, but they couldn’t force out the words to explain, instead pulling off their mask in irritation at the wet fabric against his face.

Peter wasn’t really sure why what had happened was upsetting them so much. If it was about Flash, or about what he said, or what he  _ did _ , or the creeping knowledge that it probably wouldn’t be the last time someone treated them like that now that they were out. All they knew was every time they thought they might catch their breath or their eyes might dry, they would remember the way the boy was glaring at them right before he reached for their skirt, and start choking on tears all over again.

Who knows how long they would have sat up there if they hadn’t had someone looking out for them. Knowing it probably wasn’t something she should be able to do without being instructed to, but once again relying on the fact she was following her prime directive to do  _ whatever _ she could to help them, Karen quietly opened Peter’s contacts and sent a short text, and then metaphorically crossed her fingers that it would work.

If they had been in the suit, whatever had upset them surely wouldn’t have happened. Maybe she was biased in the fact she wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Peter, but all she wanted was for them to be okay. She didn’t know if they were exactly partners, or friends, privately she had noted that both she and Peter had been called Mr. Stark’s ‘Kids’ which had the implication they were siblings. The specifics weren’t important to the AI, what mattered was doing her best to look after them.

Even if it meant doing things she wasn’t coded for.


	33. Chapter Thirty Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop, I know, that last chapter was a doozy. But also a little cathartic because I have been waiting to punch Flash this whole fic lol. I'm not going to say much about this chap except of course, content warnings for discussion about what happened the last chapter. Hope everyone in America is hanging on and staying safe!

Chapter Thirty Three

On the list of things that Wade was  _ not _ chill with, pretty high on the list would be getting a mysterious text from Peter’s number that sure sounded like either an SOS or a very obvious trap.

  
  


_ Peter: I have enclosed a GPS location. Penny is on the southwest rooftop and in need of assistance. Please be prompt, Wade. _

  
  


The somewhat hysterical texts he sent in return garnered no response, so Wade jumped into his suit so fast he thought he might have pulled something and launched himself across New York to the address he had been sent, which was an apartment around the area of town where Spiderman usually did his thang.

The fact it wasn’t an abandoned warehouse (or the morgue), or the docks (a cemetery with a fresh grave), or something else equally cliche comforted him somewhat. It wasn’t a likely place for a hostage situation or a shoot out. Still part of him was sure he was going to show up and find his Baby girl bleeding out with just enough life left to tell him he was too freaking late.

Thankfully when he got there, taking only the most cursory of surveillance to check it was safe before approaching, he did not find a dying Spidey. Not thankfully, he found an almost just as heartbreaking scene. He landed on the roof and took off his mask, slowly making his way over to where Peter was sitting, too caught up in crying to even notice him.

“Penny?”

Peter looked up in shock, face red and tear-streaked, not really understanding that Wade was suddenly in front of them. “Wade? What are you doing here? How did you find me?” They asked, inwardly cringing at how unsteady their voice was.

“Well, I got a really plot twisty text from your number that said you needed help. I’ll be honest, kinda thought I was walking into a boss fight.”

“Oh.” Peter didn’t really take in the explanation, just registering apparently Wade had been inconvenienced and worried. “I’m sorry, Wade.” They said, abruptly choking up again. They hid their face back in their arms and tried to keep any noises in. With little success.

“You don’t need to be sorry, Baby girl. Oh my goodness, you are  _ all _ worked up!” The older man exclaimed, coming over to sit next to them and put an uncertain arm around their shoulders, not sure if they were up for being comforted physically. “What happened? Did you get hurt? Did that dude with the mustache publish another article about you? Did you get the hiccups while arresting some robbers and they made fun of you? Do I need to un-alive someone?”

“It… it wasn’t a Spiderman thing.” Peter managed to answer after a couple minutes, uncurling just enough so they could turn into his arms. Wade thought they looked less like the cheerful Spiderman and more like the world’s saddest pill bug.

“Okay. Hey, why don’t you try and breath a little slower for me? Can you do that? Follow mine if you need to.” The mercenary instructed in a soothing voice, not liking the quick little pants they were getting out in between sobs.

For the next few minutes Peter just tried to do as he asked, taking as deep of breaths as they could to the rhythm of the chest moving against them as they crowded closer to Wade. Eventually they managed to take more measured breaths, the crying slowed and then petered out as they finally were able to calm down, helped along by Wade’s soothing voice in their ear and a hand running up and down their back.

“How are we doing?” He asked when it seemed like the teen would actually be able to answer.

“Better. Sorry about that.”

“Like I said, you don’t need to be sorry. I’m always here if you need me, and not just if you need me to hurt somebody… But on the topic of me hurting people for you. Do you want to talk about what happened?”

Peter sighed, idly rubbing their cheek against the other’s chest without noticing (Wade very much noticed.) “It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have gotten so upset, I’m a super hero.”

“Au contraire my sticky friend, anything that makes you this worked up isn’t stupid, whether you are a caped crusader or not.”

“Don’t call me sticky.”

“You can tell me what happened. You can tell me anything.” Wade said solemnly, dropping a kiss onto the top of their head and half hoping they didn’t notice.

After a last moment of hesitation, Peter began. “There’s this guy at school. He always gives me a hard time, I don’t know why. Maybe because his parents are really well off and I’m on scholarship. Maybe it’s because I do better in class and on our decathlon team. Honestly I don’t think there is any one reason. But ever since I came out he’s just gotten worse and worse.”

The hand that wasn’t petting down Peter’s back clenched in growing anger. “Oh?”

“It wasn’t great. But it was easy to brush off when everyone else was being so accepting.”

“I’m guessing that something happened today that wasn’t easy to brush off?”

“He… He caught me after school, said all this stuff. Which I could have handled. But then he…”

“He what?” Wade asked, wondering if he was about to go murder a high schooler.

“I was wearing a skirt today.” Peter admitted, wondering if he would judge them for it. When he seemed unfazed, simply waiting for them to keep talking, they made themself continue. “He flipped it up. I think he saw my underwear.”

“He did what?” Wade’s voice dropped into a low register Peter had never heard before, almost like when they got into a fight, but ten times scarier. 

The mercenary was seeing red, and not just because they were both wearing it. Still, he didn’t let himself fly off the handle. He needed to take care of his Spidey first. “Did he touch you?”

“No! No, it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t being a perv, he was being transphobic.” They were quick to deny. Flash was a dick but he wasn’t... that.

“That doesn’t make it okay! Fuck, I’m so sorry that that happened to you, Baby girl. You woulda been well within your rights to put him in a coma then and there… did you?”

“No.” They closed their eyes in shame. “I did hit him. I can’t believe I did it, but I hit him.”

“Why do you sound guilty about that?” Wade asked, confused.

“Because I have super strength! I could have seriously hurt him. I can’t go around hitting civilians, no matter what they do to me. Unless it’s part of helping people as Spiderman, I can’t use my powers against  _ anyone _ .”

“Baby… I get what you are saying. And I admire the resolve to not abuse your abilities. But what he did was assault, whether he meant it like that or not. You reacted the way anyone might have. And I think you would be hard pressed to find any  _ decent _ person who would say you were in the wrong.” He tried to assure them, his arms tightening around them a little at just imagining them having to deal with such an upsetting thing. At the idea of someone touching  _ his _ … Well not his. He knew he was just Peter’s friend. But that didn’t stop him from feeling somewhat possessive, even if he knew he didn’t have the right.

“I.. I guess.”

“Well, I know. That guy had it comin like Vernita Green.”

“He really isn’t that bad. I think he kind of knew that he stepped over a line after he did it.” Peter remarked, able to think a little more rationally about it and realising that Flash’s affect had become completely different right before they punched him.

“Yeah well, if he doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo, all you gotta do is let me know and I’ll show him one hard line he wont be able to cross.” Wade said darkly.

After a beat Peter surprised him with a giggle. “I think that came out wrong.”

“... Oh. Whoops.”

They let out another laugh and leaned back from being completely burrowed into the older man’s chest. They didn’t move any farther back though, noting that at that point they were pretty much cuddling on a random rooftop, the excuse of them crying and needing comfort gone but neither of them inclined to move apart.

“Hey, how did you say you found me again?”

“Oh right. Someone sent me the address using your number. Do you know who it was or were you like, facebook hacked or something?”

Peter frowned for a moment, thinking it over, before realising there was only one other person who had access to his phone. “It must have been Karen. I didn’t know she could do that.”

“And whom is Karen, may I inquire?”  _ Please don’t let this be a girl next door situation. _

Heedless of the growing opportunity for jealousy, Peter grinned. “She’s my friend. Well, she’s kind of more than that.” 

_ By Thor’s nine inch hammer, how much more of a friend is she? _

“I say ‘she’, but she’s really a computer. I’m actually the one who named her Karen. The spiderman suit has an AI built into it, to help me. But she’s more than a tool or a code. She’s really nice, and she gives great advice. She even covered for me with Mr. Stark before he found out about us. And after as well, apparently I accidentally taught her how to keep secrets.”

Wade hid his relieved smile in Peter’s hair, idly thinking how nice it smelled. “Wait… so Iron Man gave you a built-in friend along with all the weapons and air bags or whatever?” 

“Uh, I guess?”

“That is frankly adorable. Why did no one tell me Iron Man is actually adorable?” 

“I wouldn’t say that to his face, whenever you meet him.” Peter answered dryly. They already expected the first time the two met to go horribly, the last thing that would make it any better would be Wade well... Wade-ing. As much as Peter enjoyed him, they also knew their friend was an acquired taste. One they had definitely acquired. “Hey, do you remember the first time we met?”

“Hmm.” Wade’s head tilted as he thought. “In fact I do. Both times really, if you count that you didn’t recognise me the second time.”

“Right… I was so mad at you at first.” They reminisced with a smile. “Who knew one day I’d think someone stalking me might be one of the best things that ever happened to me?”

“Again with the stalking! Didn’t I already debunk that? Stalking is such a strong word with so many negative connotations. Do I look like a guy with a bad perm and a reddit account?” Wade argued, his laughter giving away that he really wasn’t offended.

“I think you missed the actual point of my statement.”

“What do you- oh.” Wade looked down at them with something like awe. “You mean..?”

Fear that they might be about to ruin everything sat like a weight in Peter’s stomach, but it didn’t have anything against the realisation that after Wade had come to their rescue and held them in his arms while they cried, said all the right things and made it seem like nothing bad could ever touch them again, they just couldn’t pretend they weren’t in love with him anymore.

“I’m so glad I met you, Wade.” They said softly, bringing a hand up to his cheek, and slow enough that he could move away if he wanted to, leaned forward to press their lips to his.

  
  



	34. Chapter Thirty Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember remember the fifth of november. Hey yall, sorry for the late update, why do I always seem to have something come up when I've left you on a cliff hanger? lol speaking of, hm did something big happen in the last chap or something? You guys seem so excited. Seriously tho I'm glad you are all enjoying the ride. Obvi this is something we all have been waiting for. (I actually hadn't scheduled the get-together for three more chapters but Peter just needed a win I guess) My nanowrimo is NOT going well so this fic and how well it's doing is my godsend rn. Okey, enough jabber on to the LURVE, enjoy!

Chapter Thirty Four

For a moment Wade didn’t move, not able to process exactly what was happening. And then he  _ did _ process it, and he only moved away long enough to groan “Fuck, Penny.” before tightening his hold on the younger teen, pulling them the last few inches forward so they were fully seated in his lap as he recaptured Peter’s lips with his own.

Peter froze, somehow caught off-guard, like even with all the flirting and overtures, they hadn’t really believed the other vigilante  _ wanted _ them and would respond positively to their kiss. Even if they had believed it, nothing in their very limited romantic history had prepared them for the overwhelming feeling of Wade’s mouth moving against their’s.

Apparently they froze for too long, because the other man stilled against them, and then started to retreat, internally panicking that he somehow misread what had seemed like a very  _ obvious _ invitation. 

Peter didn’t let him go far, chasing his lips and bringing their hands up to wrap around his shoulders, trying their best to communicate “I have no idea what is happening but  _ god don’t stop. _ ” with just their body.

At the encouragement, Wade growled against their mouth and deepened the kiss, licking at the seam of the other’s lips to ask them to open up. Peter hesitantly complied, melting as Wade took over their mouth and overwhelmed their inexperience with confidence. For a minute they let him lead, doing their best to memorise every touch and move as their mouths moved wetly against each other. In a moment of confidence they licked at Wade’s bottom lip and then followed it up with a nip, just enough to pull a little and slightly sting. To their surprise the mercenary moaned in response before pulling back, smirking when Peter again tried to follow.

“You’re killing me, Baby girl. Or at least, killing any chance of me controlling myself.” Wade groaned, his voice deeper than usual.

“I’m sorry.” Peter responded, tucking their face into Wade’s neck, suddenly retroactively shy.

“Don’t you dare. If it was by your hand, or your mouth for that matter, I’d die a happy man.” He brought a hand up to run through their hair, smiling when they pushed into it like a cat.

“No dying. Be a happy alive man.” Peter said, and Wade shivered as he felt the words against his skin.

“Fine, but only because I love you.” He snarked back.

Peter raised their head and looked at him with wide eyes. “You love me?”

Wade frowned down at them. “Was that not really obvious for like, a while now?”

“I’m not exactly… most people’s type. And there’s a big difference between liking my ass and loving me.” Peter said weakly, not exactly refuting him. In retrospect Wade’s affections seemed painfully obvious.

His frown deepened. “Hey, we need to be clear about something. For one, the fact that you are genderfluid doesn’t bother me. At all. It’s a part of you, and I love  _ all of you _ . Which yes, includes your ass, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg, Baby. You make my whole world bright and shiny and smell like daffodil daydreams.”

“Oh… I love you too.”

Wade’s expression turned surprised, like getting reciprocation hadn’t even occurred to him. “I’m going to need you to repeat that. Slowly.”

Peter felt all kinds of shy, but they made themself say “I love you, Wade Wilson.” After a second they smiled and added “Was that not really obvious?”

“I guess I should have seen that coming.” Wade answered with a laugh that was only a little choked up. He really had no idea how he had gotten where he was, how he managed to befriend the Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman, let alone how he managed to get the lovely Peter Parker to fall in love with him. 

Part of him wanted to pinch himself, or maybe do a quick bullet to the pelvis, just to check this was real life. To check he wasn’t going to wake up and suddenly the warm weight of the other teen would disappear from his lap. Because honestly? Someone like him? Didn’t get the girl unless it was a cosmic joke where she was going to get fridged right in front of him.

“Hey.” Peter prodded him, and he realised he had been looking down at them without saying anything for too long. “What are you thinking in there?”

“Just wondering what I did to deserve you.” He replied, keeping his tone light.

Peter didn’t exactly believe either the statement or the tone. “Something bad obviously. The club of people I care about isn’t exactly a cheerful one. Or a very alive one.”

“Well, that works out great because I am both cheerful and stubborn about being alive.” Peter giggled at the retort, not able to argue against either point.

For a few minutes they stayed curled against each other, just living in the moment and letting weeks of tension drift away with every touch and sweet word that was answered in kind. Eventually though, the fatigue of the day started to hit Peter.

They had planned on a patrol, but just a cursory introspection showed they really weren't in the right headspace to safely crime fight. Leftover exhaustion and a feeling of unsteadiness still lingered from their crying jag, and they knew the new developments between them and Wade would leave them far from focused. There was some temptation to ask to go back to his place, but they thought it might be a better idea to decompress in their own space, where they could go over everything that had happened without anyone who'd been involved around.

"I think I should head home."

Wade frowned a little, not liking the idea of parting just then. His concern for the younger teen (and anger) was starting to reemerge from the warm and fuzzies of their confessions. "Are you sure? Are you going to be alright after what happened? Is your aunt going to be home?"

"I'll be fine, don't worry. And yes she isn't at work so I won't be alone."

“Okay… text me when you get home? And text me if you need anything. Or want to talk.” After a beat he added “Also, text me if you start craving retribution and want me to go shoot that guy's cat or something.”

Peter frowned. That wasn’t Wade’s usual kind of off-colour. “You wouldn’t actually hurt a cat would you? It’s not the pet’s fault if their owner is crappy.”

“That’s cute, but I didn’t mean an actual cat.”

“... Wade that goes on the list of things you have said that I kind of want to google but know I really shouldn’t."

“That’s probably for the best.” Wade pressed a kiss to the top of their head, and then when he realised he could, followed it up with one on their cheek, and then a last peck on their lips. “I love you, Peter. And I love that I get to say that to you. Try and have a good rest of your night, alright?”

Cheeks pleasantly warm, and not just the one he had kissed, Peter nodded. “I’ll do my best. Love you, too.” With the parting words, the pair finally separated, and they pulled their mask back on and started heading home. 

A minute or so into the journey, Karen spoke up. “Penny? Are you feeling better now?”

“I am. Thank you for getting Wade. He… you helped, a lot. You’re the best.”

“Of course. I’m very glad he is here to help me take care of you.”

“I’d like to think we all take care of each other.”

“That is a nice sentiment, but you get in far more trouble than I do.”

They continued to affectionately bicker until they got home, after which they said their good nights and Peter changed and poked their head out of their room to greet May. It only occurred to them after they had already strolled into the living room with zero plans to share either of the days huge events with her, that she might have actually heard about the incident with Flash, as they had both technically assaulted each other, and Flash might have snitched.

Apparently though, he hadn’t, because May greeted them with nothing more than surprise that they were home so early, counting on them being out on patrol until at least dinner. Which was somewhat puzzling. Peter had been too upset at the time to gauge exactly how hard they hit him, but they had no doubt they left a mark, and there wasn’t any witnesses to  _ why _ they had resorted to lashing out. If he really wanted to, he could start some serious trouble at school, or even with the police. It was possible he was just waiting until the next day, but Peter had a feeling that wasn’t the case.

As they settled in to watch a movie with their aunt, idly reading a text from Wade that featured a lot of heart emojis, they couldn’t help but feel like the day had marked a turn in their life. Maybe it was just wishful thinking… but they felt like soon, they might actually get some peace. 

But first, there were some things that still needed to get worked out.


	35. Chapter Thirty Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished the last chapter of this! I might throw in an epilogue and I have editing to do still so I'm not technically done, but we are at the finish line! So this chapter, content warning for discussions of transphobia, homophobia, and bullying. And at one point I do throw in a Chris Fleming reference that might sound slightly off colour without context but I don't care lol. As always thank you for all of your comments and kudos! I really need the positive feedback rn, my nanowrimo is kinda tanking... whoops. Okay! Enjoy the thrilling conclusion to Flash being a dick! I may have gotten a little emotional writing this...

Chapter Thirty Five

The next day Peter went to school with a little trepidation, and their lower body firmly covered in skinny jeans, a flowy long sleeved blouse on top in a half-hearted rebellion. 

The first sign something was up was obviously that they weren’t immediately called into the principal’s office upon arriving at school. The second was when they actually saw Flash, and Flash saw them, and immediately his bruised face went pale and he looked like he might be about to be sick right then and there, right before he turned tail and fled.

Peter had some… mixed emotions about that. Part of them felt a little bit of vindictive joy that for once he was the one dreading seeing them instead of the other way around. The other part didn’t want anyone to be afraid them who wasn’t actively committing a crime. Either way, they couldn’t help but think that there was more going on with Flash.

MJ and Ned seemed to be able to tell something had happened, as Peter bounced from tense any time they caught sight of Flash to flushed and smiling whenever their phone lit up with a text from Wade, but for some reason Flash’s apparent silence on what happened made them reluctant to tell. And they also felt like they should probably wait more than twelve hours before sharing their new relationship with anyone. They did know if they kept it secret too long, they would definitely be betraying their  _ very _ new promise to stop keeping things from the various adults that would think it was the kind of thing they needed to disclose.

It was at the end of the day that something finally happened. Peter was walking out with Ned, begging off coming over as they really needed to patrol to make up for skipping the day before (After all, no drama, good or bad, meant they got to slack off on protecting the city!) when someone cleared their throat behind them.

The pair turned, and Peter, for some reason, wasn’t all that surprised to see Flash standing behind them.

“Hey… Can I talk to you? Alone?” He asked, for once seeming like his usual smugness and superiority had abandoned him.

“They’re busy, Flash. We have to go catch a train, right Penny?” Ned quickly answered, stepping between his friend and the bully.

Flash winced at the obvious brush off. “Please? Please… Penny. I really need to talk. Just talk.”

Something, maybe the quiet of their spidey-sense, told them that they wanted to hear whatever he had to say. They put a hand on Ned’s shoulder and stepped around him. “It’s alright, Ned. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

He gave Flash one last suspicious glare before nodding. “Alright. Text me later?” With a pointed look he added “Also don’t forget MJ wanted you to call her.” Which was a lie but they appreciated it.

Once the other boy left they turned to Flash with a raised eye brow and a waiting silence.

“Umm… Can we go somewhere… private? So no one overhears?”

Peter frowned but acquiesced, deciding they might as well  _ trust _ him if they were going to trust him. 

They ended up in an empty chemistry room, Peter perched awkwardly on a stool while Flash paced anxiously in front of them, trying to decide how to begin.

“I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, or have anything to do with me. Which I deserve, I know that.” He started, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “But I just can’t do this anymore.”

“Do… what exactly?” Peter asked uncertainly, really not sure where this was going. They had considered maybe getting an apology, or at least a ceasefire. But it seemed like Flash was raring up to something bigger than that.

“Pretend I hate you. And act like an ignorant asshole.” He said the words like he was sucking on a lemon.

“You don’t? You aren’t?” Peter couldn’t help asking, bemused.

“No, actually. What I am is… I’m gay. And attracted to you.”

They gaped at him. If it wasn’t for the whole enhanced senses thing, they would be sure they had misheard. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m gay. Which… my parents would be very not thrilled about. So it made me miserable whenever I had to think about it. And you make me think about it. So I wanted to make you miserable too.”

“So… you treated me like shit, because you like me.” 

“Pretty much… I tried to ignore it, pretend I wasn’t interested. You’re just so... You! So I started being an asshole because sometimes just seeing you walk by made me feel bad, so why shouldn’t you feel bad too? And if I kept it up, no one would figure out why I was doing it. It seemed like it was better if you hated me than anyone knowing I liked you.” He was all worked up, pacing again and not even looking at Peter like he had forgotten who he was even confessing to. Peter couldn’t do anything except sit and listen in shocked silence.

“It was bad enough when you were hung up on Liz and I at least thought you were straight. And then you started… dressing like  _ that. _ ” He said with a wave like he was highlighting all of Peter’s fruity business. “Which I know doesn’t actually mean you are into guys, but it seemed like a lot more of a possibility. Stupid MJ wasn’t actually wrong when she said I thought you were...And I couldn’t help but think maybe if I hadn’t been a complete dick to you all of this time…” He finally stopped moving and covered his face, sighing into his hands in frustration. “I can’t believe I did what I did yesterday. I’m not that guy. Except, apparently I am. And I hate it! I hate being like this, and treating you the way I do, and I’m tired of hiding!” He lowered his hands and finally looked at them again. “So I’m done doing it. I’m gay and I like you, and you don’t have to forgive me, but I’m sorry I’ve been punishing both of us for it, and from now on I’m going to do better.” He finished with a decisive nod.

Peter was… feeling a lot of things. It was maybe sort of flattering, to realise all of those times Flash would see them and suddenly seem to have a bug up his ass, it was because this, not that he just hated them _ that much. _ But more than anything he was just sad that they had both gone through all that pain. Some people may have felt some kind of validation that someone who had it out for them for ages was apparently filled with misery and unhappiness, but Peter was just sort of bummed out. And also deeply uncomfortable because even if they set aside the very large baggage between the two of them, someone had just confessed to them, and everything with Wade hadn’t helped them handle this kind of thing any better.

“Are you.. like, asking me out? Because I have a boyfriend.” Inwardly they realised they hadn’t actually had the label conversation, but ‘I exchanged rooftop love confessions while dressed as a superhero.’ didn’t quite sound the same.

“God no. I am painfully aware you aren’t into me. And even if you were, I am also aware us dating would be a terrible idea. Just because someone is your type doesn’t mean you wouldn’t make each other miserable.” He was quick to correct.

After a beat, feeling a little like they were pushing it, they asked “And what is your type?”

Flash narrowed his eyes, and Peter fully expected an insult to come out of his mouth, but instead what they got was “... guys who are smarter than me. But in a cute way, not like I am when I’m smarter than someone.”

“Oh.” They felt like they shouldn’t have asked. But it was a revelation that that description apparently described  _ them _ .

“Do you actually have a boyfriend or were you just saying that so I couldn’t ask you out?”

“I actually have a boyfriend.” They smiled, an occupational hazard for anytime they thought of the mercenary. “His name’s Wade.”

Apparently not convinced, Flash pressed. “I don’t know any Wades here. Sure you aren’t imagining him?” He looked like he wanted to take the last part back, but Peter smiled again to show the jibe was okay.

“He doesn’t go here. I met him through the Stark internship.”

“Likely story… And he knows about… ?” He trailed off, but the rest of the question was obvious.

“Yes, he knows I’m genderfluid. And he loves me.” They said, not a small amount of awe in their voice. It still felt like a surprise every time they remembered Wade’s acceptance of them, and the way he so easily stated his affections now that he knew they were welcomed.

“You’re lucky, that you found someone like that.” Flash said, a little dismissively, but they could see the pain and hurt he was trying to keep in, and wondered how they never noticed Flash was anything other than a bully. 

Maybe this was a situation where they needed to put aside how they felt as Peter Parker, and think about what Spiderman would do.

“You know, you could too. Take it from me, being loved and accepted isn’t just for other people. It can be for people like us too.” 

Flash scoffed. “Just because you aren’t single doesn’t mean all the after school specials are true.”

“No, but it does mean that things can get better, and you should give people chances to care about you. And I may not… like you like that, but I will work on forgiving you. Maybe one day we could even be friends.”

Flash looked at them with a fragile expression they never could have imagined on the other boy. “Yeah? Even after… everything?”

“Flash, we all do things we shouldn’t. If there’s one thing spending so much time with Mr. Stark has taught me, it’s that if people decide to change and do better, you never know exactly how great they can become.” Peter said earnestly, and a moment later thought they must have really messed up somewhere because suddenly Flash looked like he was going to cry.

“I’m so sorry, Peter. I’m going to change, I promise. And I’m going to come out to my parents. I can’t live like this anymore.” His voice cracked at the last words, and Peter somehow found themself standing up to pull the other teen into a hug.

“It’s going to be okay. And if it isn’t, tell me and I’ll help. You’re going to be okay.”

Peter stood in that empty chemistry room, with a boy they thought was their enemy clutching at their coat as he tried to stifle his tears, and they remembered what Valerie had said when she first sought them out. 

It seemed that it was Peter’s turn to pay it forward.


	36. Chapter Thirty Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad the Flash redemption seems to have gone over well, it's kind of one of my fave chapters even though I didn't actually plan it. Obvi he has a long way to go but I believe in him. This is more of a bridge chapter before we get to the conclusion but it's a super cute scene I really wanted in here.

Chapter Thirty Six

After how many stressful and wonderful things had happened the past few days, it seemed like the rest of the week just passed them by. Peter got home the night of Flash’s confession to find a slew of texts from their worried friends, which they answered as honestly as they could without giving away any information that wasn’t their’s to tell. 

Ned and MJ (And Wade when they told him) were understandably confused and untrusting about Flash’s sudden change of heart, but when the rest of the week progressed with the boy completely stopping his usual daily bullying, and instead giving Peter an awkward greeting in class here or weak a smile during decathlon there, they had to admit he did seem to be trying to change.

As for Wade, he had to leave town for a couple days, and while he had stayed in constant contact, Peter wasn’t stoked that they had left things where they were and hadn’t been face to face since. In the interim they decided to take the mercenary’s absence as an opportunity and told Mr. Stark that Deadpool was officially more than a friend. 

The conversation was brief, as they made the admission with the shortest sentence they could, and Tony replied with a single word. After that the workshop was filled with loud rock music to drown out the uncomfortable silence, and lots of avoided eye contact. 

It was only later they thought to ask if he ever made good on his threat to find Wade, which all they got in return was a somewhat frightening grin and a simple “Don’t worry about it.”

As for May, well they didn’t need to tell her. One night while Peter was texting Wade, she simply came up behind where they were sitting on the couch and wrapped her arms around their shoulders, cheekily saying a “Good job, Spiderman.” against their hair, and then moving on like nothing happened.

The rest of the week went on without any further incidents, and next thing they knew, it was Friday night. They had just come back from a patrol, and was thinking of getting a jump on the weekend’s homework so when Wade came back they would be free to meet him. Of course, before they could settle into the living room with their books, something stopped them in their tracks.

Peter was staring. Peter knew they were staring, and should stop cause it was a little creepy, but they couldn't. Aunt May was going out with some friends.  _ Out  _ out, to do adult things that adults did on a friday night. Which is why she was in the bathroom applying various dark and glittery things to her face, while Peter stared and thought about how they should stop. Before she noticed and told them off for being creepy.

"Peter, come here."

_ Oops.  _ They sidled into the bathroom, frowning in confusion when she didn’t say anything more, but instead nudged them up onto the sink counter.

“There are three things you need to know about makeup.” She began, picking up something light coloured and applying some to a brush. “One, primer and finishing power are important if you want it to last for more than a couple hours without smudging, and you should never sleep without washing it off, just with face wash, makeup remover will make you break out.” She put a hand to their cheek and after making sure they closed their eyes, started brushing the makeup onto their face. After the primer was across the apple of their cheeks and eyelids, she moved onto a light pink eye shadow.

“Two, you never  _ have _ to wear makeup. Anyone who says you always have to wear cover up or that you should never leave the house without a coat of gloss are just buying into a load of bull that is perpetuated by men and makeup companies.” She added a slightly darker colour to the outside of their lid and blended it lightly, and then with a practiced hand drew two delicate wings with an eyeliner pen.

“Three, makeup isn’t a hygiene product, it’s a toy. You use it to have fun or feel good about yourself.” She took another larger brush and applied something warm coloured and sparkly to the top of their cheek bones, following with a quick brush of finishing powder over all of it. Then she pumped a dollop of something into her hand and fiddled with their hair for a moment.

“Just remember those things, and try to not buy anything tested on animals, and you will be,” She gently turned them to face the mirror. “golden.”

Peter’s breath caught in their throat. 

They liked the way they looked, on their feminine and masculine days. And they didn’t exactly disbelieve when May said they were pretty or MJ (reluctantly) said they looked nice that day. They themself had spent maybe too much time admiring how they looked in their new clothes. But looking at the subtle eye makeup that accented their eyes and the shimmer across their blushed cheeks, they could say for the first time they felt like they looked  _ beautiful _ . And not,  _ well for a boy _ , or maybe at a distance before you noticed who they were and got confused, until you got closer and  _ really  _ saw them. Something about it just felt less like it could be picked apart, or like an allowance.

“What do we think?” May asked when they hadn’t said anything for too long.

“We think that eyeliner feels weird but that this is nice… Can I try mascara?”

She laughed a little. “Sure, but I’m helping. You can poke your eye out if you don’t have the hang of it.”

May was a bit late leaving to meet her friends, but she definitely didn’t mind. Once she was out the door and Peter was finally on the couch with a textbook in their lap, they followed a whim and a sudden surge of bravery and sent a quick selfie to Wade. Unsurprisingly they got a very enthusiastic reply.

_ 💀💦: !!!!!! Y you lookin so fiiiine bby grl??? Should I be concerned y u so spiffed up on a friday nite? or r u just tryna seduce me home early ;) _

_ Peter: My aunt let me try some of her makeup. You like it? _

_ 💀💦: Like?! lemme put it this way, im so glad im gunna be home sunday _

_ Peter: You are? _

_ 💀💦: Yup! Got evrything here finishd up. _

Peter hesitated for a minute. With Wade home… They had told him their name, they had told him they loved him. They had trusted him everything… almost. Part of them felt like they still needed to really show him who they were. Which meant…

_ Peter: Can I see you Sunday then? _

_ 💀💦: Ya! of course! Want me to meet u for patrol? _

_ Peter: Sure… but I was thinking… maybe after, we have dinner at yours again? But… more like a date than before? _

It was several minutes before Wade replied, and Peter sat nervously and stared at their phone for every one of them.

_ 💀💦: U have no idea how much I am down for that. And I will say rite now, I absolutely do not wait until the third date to put out. _


	37. Chapter Thirty Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it guys! This is the last official chapter of the fic. I will be posting an epilogue (and a fun little bonus chapter ;) look forward to that) I went back and forth about how to end but I think this is a good way to round it all out. Thank you all so much for your comments and kudos! Also, I feel like I should state, I decided that this fic and where Peter is rn, doesn't really work for them and Wade to get it on quite yet. Flirtations and the fact they are pretty handsy with each other aside, I think they would take their time working up to it. So, nothing explicit is happening this chapter. Well, mild steam but hey, can you blame Wade?

Chapter Thirty Seven

Saturday Peter frantically begged MJ to take them back to the thrift store to find something to wear. She agreed with a great deal of complaining and talk of beauty standards, only a little of it wasn’t just for show. They walked away with a few choice pieces, including some things they hadn’t had the courage to pick out their first trip, but most importantly a knee length light blue dress with long sleeves and a collar like their favourite shirt, which they thought might be a sign of good luck.

Before leaving for patrol they carefully packed the dress and what else they needed in their backpack and then changed into the Spiderman suit, feeling a little thrill at the whole ensemble which was completed with a darker blue pair of lace boy shorts. 

Doing their best to not think about last time they got all dressed up for a big night, as hopefully there would be no explosions and Wade’s dad wouldn’t show up to kill them, they headed out to meet him.

They arrived at their usual meeting place a little early, but was still somewhat disappointed to find the rooftop empty, as apparently they beat Wade in their eagerness. Of course, the moment they concluded he wasn’t there, they heard a wolf-whistle from the other side of a chimney. They circled around and let out a giggle when they saw the familiar sight of Wade reclined on the edge of the roof, just like the first (second) time they met.

“Isn’t this a familiar picture?” They said, pulling off their mask.

“It is, isn’t it? Does that mean you’ll paint me like one of your french girls?” Wade shot back flirtatiously before standing up and sauntering over to them. When he was in front of them he took off his own mask and pulled Peter against him by their hips, a slow and sweet smile on his face. “I know I haven’t actually seen it that many times, but I missed this face. I think it’s my fave face.”

Peter put their hands on his chest, reveling in the feeling of his beating heart and the warmth coming through his suit. Hopefully it would keep beating the whole patrol. For once. “I missed you too.”

“Oh really?” Wade leaned in until his nose brushed lightly against theirs. “Well, then kiss me like you missed me, Red.”

Peter eagerly obeyed, leaning into a kiss that started sweet and turned heated as they melted into him, a shiver going up their spine as he slid his hands down to rest just shy the swell of their ass, thumbs pressing slightly into the divot of their back. It was several minutes before they could bear to separate, only Peter’s determination that they  _ really did _ need to patrol kept them from staying in his arms until they had memorised what every line of the Deadpool suit felt like against them.

“We have to make sure there aren’t any bad guys running around my neighbourhood.” They sighed, pulling away.

“Or I could just be  _ very very bad _ and you would have to  _ take me in. _ ” Wade said with a smirk.

“Tempting, but you’re going to have to wait until I know for sure no one’s going to burn down anything while we are having dinner.”

“In that case let’s go make some magic, Baby.”

Patrol was a few hours of flirting and romantic overtures thinly veiled as stopping muggers and helping little kids that wandered away from their parents in Central Park. Maybe it was that they were finally breaking all the tension between them, but Peter was able to lose themself in enjoying the night and having fun with Wade without feeling like they were about to fall off a cliff any moment, waiting for whatever was going to happen next between them.

Still they were kind of relieved when they finished their usual circuit and they got to grab their backpack from where they hid it and head over to Wade’s place. Of course they lasted up until they actually walked into the apartment, laughing with Wade about a weird cat they found trapped on a fire escape, and remembered now was the part where they changed.

They dithered in front of the bathroom door for a minute before Wade came up behind them and hooked his chin over their shoulder. “You know… you can stay in the suit, if you want. There’s no dress code to the Wilson crash pad. Be as dressed up as you want… or as dressed down.” He said, his hand snaking down until Peter danced away from the teasing grope with a laugh.

“It’s okay, I’ll just be a minute.” 

They slipped into the bathroom and shrugged off the suit, spending a moment standing there in their panties, working through their sudden stage fright. Wade had seen them in a pair of unassuming jeans, and seen them without their mask, but he certainly hadn’t seen… everything at the same time.

_ Well, that sounded dirty. _ They thought before rallying and slipping on their dress, along with a pair of knee-high fuzzy gray socks because even if they weren’t wearing pants, they were going to be comfy. Then they slipped a compact out of their backpack, a new addition thanks to May, and quickly brushed on some eye shadow and drew a pair of low-key wings. Apparently engineer’s hands with enhanced coordination meant they picked up the tricks their aunt showed them pretty quickly.

With one last fluff of their hair and a weak smile in the mirror, they whispered to themself “You got this, Spidey.” and left the bathroom.

Wade was loitering outside in the living room while obviously trying to not look like he was just waiting around to see them, already changed out of the Deadpool suit. As soon as he caught sight of them, his whole body froze except his widening eyes, and he breathed out a quiet “ _ Oh…” _

The sides of Peter he had seen so far were powerful, and inspiring, and handsome, and cute, and  _ hot. _ But the Penny who was in front of him was someone entirely new, still all of those things, but also  _ beautiful _ , and  _ radiant _ , and  _ delicate _ , and just _ so pretty _ that he couldn’t help really wanting to jump their bones but also wrap them in his arms and never let go.

Assuming the worst out of Wade’s one word exclamation, Peter took an involuntary step back, their hands unconsciously gripping the hem of their dress in a nervous tic they had recently acquired. 

“Wait, wait.” Wade immediately stepped forward, his hands going up before hesitating to actually touch them. “I didn’t mean, like Oh!” He said with a comical frown at the end. “I meant like… Oh…” He slowly brought a hand up to one of their cheeks and leaned his forehead against their with a soft smile. 

“Oh?” Peter repeated, with a shy grin.

“Oh.” Wade nodded before placing a delicate kiss on their lips, deepening the kiss after a moment, his other hand coming up to cup their neck.

Peter floated in the kiss, reveling in the fact someone wasn’t just _ accepting _ them, but apparently  _ wanted  _ them whether they Spiderman, or like this. 

Eventually Wade pulled away, determined to not be a horndog about this because even if the skirt of Peter’s dress didn’t give him some _ great  _ ideas, he knew when to hold back.

“You really are the prettiest Penny I’ve ever seen.” He couldn’t help purring, placing one last kiss on their lips before stepping away.  _ Dinner, Wilson. They are here to have a nice dinner date, not for  _ you _ to eat  _ them _! _ He chastised, going toward the kitchen.

Peter stood in a daze for a moment, reeling from the kisses and the compliment, before shaking their head a little and following. They watched the mercenary start to prep for cooking, knowing if they offered to help they would be summarily rebuffed on the basis of the Wilson crash pad hospitality rules, so instead they hopped onto the counter for a good vantage point to watch. Wade was rather good in the kitchen, not exactly chef level but definitely a decent home cook.

They knew it was probably a little sad how much they enjoyed just watching him put his knife skills to use on dicing onions and taking the occasional peek at his backside when he leaned down to get something from a lower cabinet, but they figured now that they were actually together, they had the right to.

Wade meanwhile was putting every ounce of control he had into continuing to putter around and not focus on the hero perched across from him, watching him with an adorable little smile and swinging their legs like a kid in a too big chair. That dress  _ really _ worked for them, and apparently he had been getting off (ha) easy with the skin tight Spiderman suit because actually seeing those legs bare with only a pair of knee-high socks to interrupt was  _ torture. _ Especially since he thought it must have been a new purchase, or Peter was still adjusting to wearing skirts, because at one point they swung their leg up a little too high and Wade almost cut off one of his fingers as he caught a peek of something dark blue and lacy underneath. At this rate, he really didn’t know how he was going to keep sane, well, as sane as he ever was.

Like they were determined to kill him, Peter brought up the newly romantic and amorous turn of their relationship, heedless of his growing (something) distraction, as they remembering something from the week before.

“Hey, Wade?”

“Yeees, Babes?”

“Exactly… what are we?” Peter asked awkwardly, gulping a little when Wade stopped what he was doing and turned to them with a frown. “I know it’s kind of lame to ask, and if you don’t want to like, label this. That’s fine. I was just wondering. I told Flash you’re my boyfriend. Kind of as an excuse, but also because… Well if you don’t want me to call you that, it’s fine.”

Wade had  _ a lot _ of feelings and thoughts on the subject, but those could wait. “When did you talk about me with that asshole?” He asked, bemused.

“When he apologised. He said he liked me and I told him if he was asking me out I was already taken.” Peter said, a little worried how it would sound, but immediately they were shown that they hadn’t offended the older man, as at hearing the end of the statement, hearing he had  _ taken _ them, he looked up at the ceiling for a second, before squeezing his eyes shut and sighing deeply through his nose.

“Fuck it.” He was suddenly across the kitchen and crowding against them, his hands going to ruck up their dress enough to grip their thighs, and his lips to their’s in a bruising kiss. They gasped at the sudden move and Wade took the opportunity to lick into their mouth.

_ In for a Penny… _ He thought with an internal snicker, not able to be all that disappointed with himself when giving into not keeping his hands to himself felt so good.

They both lost themselves in the embrace, Peter shivering at the feeling of the larger man’s rough hands kneading his thighs lightly as they made out. It wasn’t until their spidey sense lightly went off that they pulled away, a giggle slipping from between their spit-wet lips.

“Our food’s burning.”

Wade groaned, his head dropping to their shoulder. After a moment (and a quick hickey that he knew would heal in a matter of minutes but he couldn’t resist leaving on their neck) he regained his control, and the tatters of his composure, and turned back to the stove.

Peter watched fondly as he rescued dinner, which thankfully was still salvageable, before realising he never actually answered. “Does that mean yes?”

It took Wade a second to remember exactly what had started the makeout session, and when he did he let out a laugh from deep in his chest that brought heat to Peter’s cheeks. “Hell yes, let me be your boyfriend, Penny. At least until I get to wife you.” He ended with a wink.

At that statement Peter couldn’t resist coving their face with their hands in pleased embarrassment.  _ They had a boyfriend! And it was Wade! _

“On the subject, what do you want me to call you? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Partner?  _ Sugar baby? Lover? _ ” Wade asked, cheek in his tone at the end.

Peter tried to frown discouragingly at the last two but utterly failed at looking anything other than besotted. “I guess… could you use boyfriend on my masc days and girlfriend on my fem ones?”

“Caaan do, Baby girl. Hey, that means I get two for the price of one.” He jested with a wink.

“If you keep making jokes like that I’m going to break up with you.” Peter said, fondness oozing from their threat.

“Naw, you love it.” Wade’s grin was officially at shit-eating levels of happy.

“Yeah, you’re right. I really do.”


	38. Chapter Thirty Eight

Epilogue

“Is he going to show up in his costume?”

“Just so you know, if he looks older than you said, I’m going straight for his nuts with my doc martens.”

“Will he have his swords? Do you think I could hold them?”

“In general if he seems sketchy. I don’t care if he’ll heal from it, no one’s immune to bruised nuts.”

“Guys!” Peter spoke up above the chatter of their two friends.

It was after decathlon practice on the day that May had decided Wade was going to come over for dinner. Meaning that she just announced a few days before “Tell Wade he is coming over for dinner so I can meet your boyfriend.” and that was apparently that.

What Peter didn’t realise was that when Wade offered to meet them after they got out for the day so they could head home together, that meant Wade was  _ also _ meeting MJ and Ned, as at hearing about the pick up, they immediately decided to invite themselves to wait out front with them.

“One, Spiderman is dating Deadpool, not Peter. Peter is dating Wade. So  _ no _ , he will not be in his suit or have his swords. And two, it doesn’t matter if you can’t actually hurt him, no kicking my boyfriend.” They kept their tone stern despite the warm fuzzy feelings they were still having at getting to say things like ‘We’re dating’ and ‘boyfriend’.

“Lame.”

“You’re no fun.”

Peter rolled their eyes and went back to watching the foot traffic for a certain tall, bald, and handsome figure. Just when they thought they might see the familiar silhouette a couple blocks down, another uninvited spectator walked over.

“What are you losers doing?” Flash asked, coming to stand by them with his hands in his pockets, eyes following Peter’s.

At a pointed raised eye brow from MJ he got a sheepish look. “I mean, um. What are you doing… not losers?”

Peter once again rolled their eyes, but this time with a smile. The longer Flash tried to work on changing his behaviour, the less it became uncomfortable and the more it became amusing watching him stumble through acting like a decent person. 

He so far had kept his word, even coming out to his parents just like he said he would. It hadn’t gone  _ great, _ Peter had actually asked Valerie for some resources for him like support groups and counselours. But they thankfully hadn’t reacted too badly, and while there had been a few more instances of Peter having to console the former bully when he broke down, he reported things had calmed and it was more awkward at home than anything. 

“We are scoping out Penny’s boyfriend.”

“Their what? Who? Wait, is it…?”

The approaching figure caught sight of the little committee waiting for him, and Wade jogged the last few yards to them, not slowing down so he barrelled straight to Peter, scooping the smaller teen up by their waist and spinning them around dirty dancing style, earning a stream of giggles from Peter and a collection of wide eyes and gaping mouths from their friends.

“Baby girl! I missed you! You need to graduate already so I don’t have to live without you from eight to four every weekday.” Wade enthused, halting his excited spinning but not letting them down yet.

“Kiss me like you missed me, Red.” Peter retorted, a pleased grin spreading across their face.

“As you wish.” Wade said, his voice going low, before lowering them to do just that. The couple lost themselves for a moment in a barely safe for public consumption kiss, until MJ pointedly said “AHEM.” Prompting them to separate with a laugh from Wade and an embarrassed smile from Peter.

“May I ask who the spectators are?” Wade asked, possibly only noticing the trio in that moment.

“Wade, these are my friends; MJ, Ned, and Flash.” They did their best to say through eye contact alone ‘Everyone be NICE’

“The scary one, the coding nerd, and… Friend? Really? That’s what we are going with? I could think of some more accurate… and creative labels.” He gave MJ and Ned friendly smiles, and a look of distaste, like he was seeing a dead rat, to Flash.

“Wade!” Peter smacked his arm. One down.

“No, no he’s right.” Ned said, a hand to his chin, his eyes narrowed at Flash. Two down.

“Scary?” MJ repeated. “Fine. Your nuts have earned a stay of execution.” And three down, why were the people they cared about like this?

“Okay, on that note can you walk over there so I can say some things to my friends I don’t want you to hear, and then we can head home?” Peter instructed, steering Wade away.

“Yes, dear. It was nice to kind of meet you guys.” He cheerfully went with a wave, inwardly squealing about how cute his little Penny was when they were embarrassed. 

Peter watched him go with a smile before turning to their friends with a scowl. “I hate you guys and you cannot be trusted.”

“Why didn’t you mention he’s huge!?” Ned demanded, his eyes wide. “Seriously! He’s jacked, and like super tall!”

“I really don’t want to hear about how  _ huge _ Penny’s boyfriend is. I will admit he’s cute. And it’s good to know my reputation precedes me. Even immortals fear me.” MJ added smugly.

“You don’t mean you hate me right, I didn’t say anything… he is hot though. Good catch, Parker.” Flash threw in, looking cowed.

“Thank you, Flash. You are now my only friend. Now, I am going to go have a really weird dinner with my hot boyfriend and May. You two should spend the night googling ‘boundaries’.” They walked over to where Wade was waiting, ignoring the laughter from MJ and Ned, and Flash’s stuttering behind them.

“Ready to go?” Wade held his hand out to catch their’s, reaching for Peter having become a subconscious constant since they finally got together.

“Yes, please. The sooner I run out of people to introduce you to, the more sane I will be.”

“Eh, sanity is overrated.”

“Remember you said that after my aunt is done with you.”

They made their way through the city, each enjoying a bit of comfort as the kind of person who got more looks than average from strangers in public, walking with another person who also got said looks, even if for two very different reasons.

When they got to Peter’s apartment, they felt a weird urge to knock, even though it was their home, but something felt like things were supposed to be very formal just then. “May! We’re here!” They called in from the foyet, sending one last prayer to the god of teenage spiders for good luck. 

May poked her head out of the kitchen,  _ something _ in her hair and across her cheek.

“Hey, kids! Dinner is… happening. At some point. Maybe.” She glanced over her shoulder in a way that implied there was something dangerous lurking on the stove behind her. She came out, wiping her hands somewhat ineffectually on a towel, and held one out to Wade.

“It’s great to meet you, Wade!” Her smile didn’t drop but her eyes narrowed. “Did I say kid earlier?” Her narrowed eyes scanned him up and down, more up than down considering his large frame. “Exactly how old are you, Mr. Wilson?”

Wade froze with his hand half way to shaking hers, his smile shaky as a chihuahua. “Um. Nineteen, Ma’am?”

“Are you telling or asking?” She reached forward take his hand, and Peter winced at how tight it looked like she was holding it.

“Telling, Ma’am?”

“Stop calling me Ma’am, do you see any gray in my hair? How much longer are you nineteen?”

“.... Four months and seventeen days?”

After a minute thinking it over she pumped his hand once and then thankfully released it. “Not great, but acceptable.”

“Thank you, Ma’a-, I mean um. Thank you, May? It’s very nice to meet you too.” Wade stuttered out.

Peter this whole time was looking between the two of them, saying with their eyes ‘Do you see this? Do you see how cute he is? You have to love him too, you just have to.’

May did her best to answer ‘Fine, but I hate how grown up he is.’ Outloud she said “Dinner might be a hot minute. Why don’t you show Wade your room, Penny? Door open, though.” She winked and hurried back to the kitchen and all of the suspicious noises and smells coming from it.

“That could have been worse.” Peter concluded.

“It could have been? _ How? _ ”

After a moment of consideration they cracked a smile. “My uncle Ben could be alive, then you would have had to face both of them.”

Wade… had no idea how to respond to that. So he settled for pulling Peter into a hug while whispering “What the fuck, Penny?”

Peter pulled away after a minute. “Come on, we’ve got about ten minutes by my estimate to amuse ourselves before she gives up and orders in.”

They led the mercenary into their bedroom, obviously prepared before hand, the floor clear and all laundry put in its place. Which apparently was a bad call, because it took Wade about two minutes taking in the nerdy and quaint room with a fond smile before he zeroed in on a slightly open dresser drawer with something thin and red hanging out of it.

“Hmm, what’s this, Penny?” 

Ignoring their stuttered threats to “No, no! I will kick you out before we get to eat! Don’t look in there, c’mon Wade! You’ve been in here all of a minute, stay out of my-” he strolled over and pulled the drawer the rest of the way open, revealing the rainbow of silk and lace inside.

“Damn. I don’t know whether to be scared or impressed. I’m definitely a third thing I’m not gunna say out loud in case your aunt hears.” Wade said, his jaw dropping. “Spidey, this is  _ extensive. _ ”

Peter was sure their whole face was bright red. “It’s not that many. After all apparently women’s underwear is expensive, and it’s not like I’m made of money.” They muttered the second part.

“Well, damn Baby girl. I am. And I’m always looking for fun ways to blow some.. cash. And this is a drawer fulla fun. So you ever wanna go on a little shopping spree all you gotta do is slide into my DMs.” Wade enthused, his eyes not leaving the drawer that he was subtly pawing through.

“...Really?”

“Hell yeah. I could always use some more lingerie anyhow. Same for regular clothes of course, I’m not  _ just _ a perv.” He finally turned from the panty drawer to them with a blinding grin, eyes sparkling. “Ooohh! We could go dress shopping together. I’ve got a job next month I need something slinky with a matching pair of heels for.”

Peter looked at him, at that grin that first caught their eye way before they even knew him, at his bright bright eyes that they could stare into for hours. They looked at their boyfriend standing in their room looking  _ so _ happy at the idea of going dress shopping of all things. And they knew, they might have never imagined any of this, knew they  _ wanted any of this _ , six months ago. But there was now way their life could be anymore perfect than it was at that moment.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

Wade walked over and reeled Peter in by their hips, leaning his forehead against theirs. “Nope. So you better keep telling me every day. And let me buy you lots of underwear and pretty clothes.” He followed the statement up with putting a hand on the back of their neck and pulling them into a deep kiss.

“Hey, guys? I think dinner might be a bit too conceptual at this point. Does pizza or chinese sound better?” May’s voice came from the kitchen, splitting them apart with laughs.

They looked at each other with matching smiles before turning toward the cracked door.

“Pizza!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all he wrote! This has been an amazing adventure that I got to take with Penny, Wade, and all of you. Thank you for your support and all your kind comments. I had so much fun with this, and I am glad you guys did too. I would like to think after this, Peter continued their transition with everyones' help, Wade continued his work at being a better hero, Tony continued to mentor Spiderman until he got to grow up and start his own team, Flash got lots of therapy and a cute boyfriend, and of course, eventually Spideypool got hitched and lived happily ever after. But I won't be writing any of that, so you'll just have to imagine it. I did write a fun little extra that is NOT canon to this story, that I will post tomorrow. Make sure you read the notes first if you read it lol. This story meant a lot to me as a trans person, and it was also just so fun! Thank you for reading, this is Will, signing off. Until next time.


	39. Chapter Thirty Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!WARNING!!!!!! The following chapter is an extra outside the timeline of this fic, and includes explicit content. If you are not comfortable reading explicit content including an underage character, do not proceed! I wrote this because I just couldn't stop thinking about how different chapter 15 could have gone, and it was really fun. But obvi it doesn't fit the plot and themes of the fic, so I'm posting it as a little parting gift, not a canon chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter Fifteen Alternate Ending

“Welcome to Casa de Deadpool.” The mercenary said with a wave of his hands once he had let them in.

It wasn’t bad, honestly. He had for some reason expected worse. Aside from some questionably stained and visibly thrifted furniture, some miscellaneous wrappers here and there, and some rather suspicious holes in the wall, it was pretty habitable for a vigilante hideaway in the slums.

“I was thinking tacos, if you are down for mexican?” He prompted, and Peter realised he had been silently looking around and should probably say something.

“Sure! I’m always up for mexican. And I like your place.” He said, plomping down on the couch, which was reasonably comfortable. 

“Any food allergies I should know of? Dietary requirements? On paleo or pescatarian or only eats small insects?” The other man quipped as he headed into the connected kitchenette.

“Nope.” He replied, popping the p at the end.

“And tolerance for heat? I like to keep it spicy but if I must, I will restrain myself just for you.” He said, Peter was sure with a smirk under his mask.

_ Well, not gunna count the innuendos in that statement. _ He thought before answering. “Whatever you got, my mouth can take. My powers come in handy for quite a few non-hero situations.”

Wade froze in place for long enough that Peter realised what he had just said. “Oh. Umm..” He stuttered, his face instantly flooding with heat. How in the world did Deadpool constantly spew suggestive comments without losing his composure?

Wade spun around to face him, a hum starting in his throat that was more a strangled squeak as he pulled off his mask with deliberate movements. As soon as it was off and all of his face was visible, he made eye contact with Peter and said in a rough voice. “Okay, Baby boy. I really am trying to be a gentleman here, so. Rule one of the Wilson Crash Pad. No saying things like that if you expect me to behave myself.”

He was half-tempted to flirt back, maybe throw out a sassy “Or what?” or maybe an even riskier “Who says I want you to behave?” just to see what the mercenary would do, but he was a bit too busy staring into Deadpool’s eyes for the first time to say  _ anything _ .

Really, seeing his entire face was a  _ whole thing _ . Wade was handsome enough with no hair and all the scars, it was hard to imagine how unapproachabley hot he must have been before. But the worst part was definitely his eyes. They were blue, not a stereotypical robin’s egg bright colour, but an interesting blue that had depth and little bits of green. He almost without thinking about it got up from the couch and came to stand across from him in the kitchen, his eyes not leaving the mercenary’s face the entire time.

Wade cleared his throat, breaking the tension in the room, though he didn’t seem to realise exactly what kind of tension it was. “Sorry, I was going to change out of my church clothes but if you aren’t okay with the full pulp fiction cover I can stay suited up.” He said uncertainly, fiddling with his mask like he was going to put it back on. The other man’s self consciousness somehow broke through his own issues, and it suddenly felt like it would be so much worse to let Wade think Peter was anything other than enamoured with him, than to finally have to deal with his newfound attraction.

“No, it’s not that.. It’s just… Who says I want you to behave?”

Wade actually dropped his mask as what he just heard registered. Before Peter could even think to regret letting the words slip out, his friend’s eyes darkened and he was across the kitchen and pressing him into the counter with his hands on his hips, something that was definitely not a squeak but a  _ growl _ rumbling in his chest.

“This is the part where you walk that back before you see exactly what me  _ misbehaving _ looks like.” Wade warned quietly, his lips right against his ear and his voice like gravel.

Peter was reeling at how the atmosphere of the kitchen had changed so drastically with just a few sentences, but he was feeling a lot more than surprise and nerves, and as he felt his body heat up everywhere Wade was touching him, knew he wasn’t about to walk back  _ anything _ .

“Like I said.. What makes you think I don’t want to see that?” He said in a breathy voice he almost didn’t believe could come from him.

“Fuck, Spidey.” Wade groaned before tightening his grip on the younger boy’s hips, pushing the last few inches forward so they were connected knees to chest as he caught Peter’s lips with his own.

Peter froze, somehow still caught off-guard, like even with all the flirting and overtures, he hadn’t really believed the other vigilante  _ wanted _ him. Even if he had believed it, nothing in his very limited romantic history had prepared him for the overwhelming feeling of Wade’s mouth moving against his.

Apparently he had frozen for too long, because the other man stilled against him, and then started to retreat, internally panicking that he somehow misread what had seemed like a very  _ obvious _ invitation. Peter didn’t let him go far, chasing his lips and bringing his hands up to wrap around his shoulders, trying his best to communicate “I have no idea what is happening but  _ god don’t stop. _ ” with just his body.

At the encouragement, Wade growled against his mouth and deepened the kiss, licking at the seam of the boy’s lips to ask him to open up. 

Peter hesitantly complied, melting as Wade took over his mouth and overwhelmed his inexperience with confidence. For a minute he let him lead, doing his best to memorise every touch and caress as their mouths moved wetly against each other. In a moment of confidence he licked at Wade’s bottom lip and then followed it up with a nip, just enough to pull a little and slightly sting. To his surprise the mercenary moaned in response before pulling back, smirking when Peter again tried to follow.

“You’re killing me, Baby boy. Or at least, killing any chance of me controlling myself.” Wade’s pupils were blown wide, and a quick look down at the line of his growing erection straining the tight material of his body armour showed exactly how much he was affected. Somehow Peter’s face got warmer, and he knew if he looked down at himself, he wouldn’t be any better off.

“Stop waiting for me to back out.” He tried to sound stern, but it came out almost a whimper. Like he needed to prove to both of them that he wasn’t going to deny either of them anymore, he reached up and pulled his mask the rest of the way off, meeting the other eye to eye for the first time.

Wade’s breath caught as he took in the boy before him. He had expected Spiderman to be attractive, not that it would have mattered much at this point what he had going on underneath the suit. He could have been hiding two extra pairs of eyes and fangs, and he probably still would have been into it just because _ it was his Spidey _ . But he wasn’t really prepared for how absolutely adorable he was, in the way you just wanted to absolutely  _ ruin _ . Not to mention he already looked halfway to ruined, blushy cheeks and spit-wet kiss-swollen lips.

“ _ Fuck _ , Spidey…” He said again, because god did it bear repeating, as he slid his hands down from the boy’s hips, over that pert ass he had looked at  _ so many times _ , and now finally got to  _ squeeze _ , earning a surprised moan, before hooking his hands under his thighs and lifting him onto the counter behind him. 

He quickly crowded back into the other’s space, stepping into the V of his legs and just barely resisting the urge to  _ grind down _ . Instead he took a moment to take a breath, try and quell a little bit of the blood going straight down to his dick and clouding his judgement.

Peter was trying to work through his own haze of arousal, his head spinning from the sudden manhandling and the feel of Wade’s hands on him. His arms had gone back around his shoulders to balance from his new perch, and he leaned his head forward to rest against the other’s. “Peter.” He breathed out against Wade’s lips, not quite a kiss.

“Peter?” Wade repeated, too caught up to get what he was saying.

“My name. I want you to know my name. Not Spidey, call me by my name.” Peter tried to articulate, feeling like it was suddenly so stupid to hold back from his friend when he could be moaning his actual name instead of Spiderman’s.

“Oh. Peter… God, Peter.” Wade did moan, first just trying it out, and then purring it before bringing their mouths back together in a positively filthy kiss. Their tongues moved against each other's as Wade started running his hands over him, gripping his hips, and then squeezing his thighs, moving back up to grab two handfuls of his ass, and then repeating it all over again.

Peter whimpered into the kiss, grinding forward without meaning to, and they both pulled back to moan at the friction of their crotches meeting.

“Okay, this is the part where if you don’t want this to go all the way, you tell me. Because I’m not going to be able to stop for much longer.” Wade said, using every ounce of self control to not start thrusting his clothed erection against Peter’s.

Peter had tucked his face into the other’s neck when they pulled apart, and he spent a moment just panting against him, trying to think past the feeling of pure  _ want. _ “I… I’ve never done this before.” He got out, suddenly worried the other would balk at his inexperience. “But…  _ please _ , Wade.” He all but begged, grinding forward again, barely knowing exactly what he was asking for.

“God damn it, Peter.” Wade growled, his hands tightening around his waist enough it would probably bruise. “How am I supposed to not  _ wreck _ you after you say no one else has ever touched you like this, and ask me so nicely like that?”

In response Peter closed his mouth against the other’s neck and nipped, following it with a bruising suck and a lap of his tongue.

“Shit!” Wade moaned as he continued to do his best to give the mercenary a hickey. Once he was content with the mark and backed off, Wade quickly stepped back to put some distance between them, and give himself space to think. As much as he wanted to just let go, if this really was the kid’s first time, he wasn’t just going to make it quick and dirty, ending with them cumming in their pants or with a sloppy handjob. Peter deserved better than that.

“Strip.”

Peter shivered at the command, something Wade definitely made note of for later use. “What?”

“You heard me. Take off the suit.” Wade said challengingly. If the younger boy didn’t really want this, he had this last chance to back out.

Peter only paused for a moment, before scrambling to get out of the Spiderman suit, internally thanking Mr. Stark for designing it so he could get in and out of it quickly, and then feeling really weird that he was thinking about his mentor at a time like that. He managed to get it off without getting down from the counter, letting it fall to the floor, and looking back up at Wade as his nerves returned. He had been too caught up when he took off his mask, but he was suddenly very worried Wade would find him wanting outside the red and blue statement that made Spiderman.

Of course, Wade was in an entirely different galaxy of thought, as he first took in the web-slingers almost flawless pale skin, muscled physique, and long bare legs. Then of course, there was a record-scratch moment when his brain registered the black silk bordered by lace that covered the boy’s straining erection, complete with a little bow at the front.

“Peter…” He said quietly before surging forward and cupping his hand around the boy’s crotch. “What the fuck is this, huh? You telling me you’ve been hiding this under your tight little suit this whole time?” He demanded in a growl, suddenly retroactively so much more turned on over every interaction he had with the hero.

Peter gasped at the sudden pressure over his dick, feeling himself start to leak into the panties. “They… boxers show under the suit.” He tried to explain, barely paying attention to what he was saying as the other man’s hand started stroking him through the fabric.

“Oh really? You’re telling me this is just a practical choice?” Wade asked with a grin, momentarily releasing him to run his hand along the lace border and then  _ snap _ the elastic against his hip, earning a whimper from the boy.

“I guess… I also just like them. They’re pretty.” Peter made himself say.

“You’re right, they are. Pretty panties, for a pretty boy.” Wade purred, leaning forward to pull him into another kiss.

Peter wasn’t sure where to focus as the older man’s lips moved against his, then trailed across his cheek and down to his neck, all the while his hands once again continuing their quest to grope every inch of his thighs, hips, and ass, maddeningly avoiding going back to where he really wanted Wade to touch him.

“Wade… please…” He pleaded as the other sucked a mark into where his shoulder and neck met.

“What, Baby boy? Tell me what you want.” Wade said in between kisses down his chest, leaning down enough to close his mouth around one of his nipples.

Peter moaned in surprise, lost for several minutes in the sensation as Wade licked, sucked, and nipped at one, and then the other.

Eventually he took his mouth off with a _ pop _ and smirked up at the panting boy. “I’m waiting, Peter.”

“I,” He tried to think, think of anything past the aching of his cock, still trapped in the silk of his panties and leaking. “Please, just touch me.” He finally got out.

Wade’s smirk somehow turned even more wicked. “I’ll do you one better.” He said, surprising him with a loud  _ smack  _ to his ass, something the mercenary had been dreaming of doing for far too long and earned him a satisfying squeak, and then suddenly dropping to his knees.

“What..?” Peter started to ask in confusion, before cutting off with a moan as without warning Wade leaned forward and mouthed at his dick over the panties, wet heat enveloping him as the mercenary tongued over where the head of his cock was trapped under the fabric. He pulled back for a moment to kiss and suck a few marks into his thighs, looking up to take in the vision of Peter panting above him with his eyes closed and head falling back, braced on his hands with his thighs spread wide open for him. Once he had taken in his fill (for the moment at least) he went back to licking and sucking over the bulge of the hero’s dick, reveling in the boy’s moans as the thong became soaked in saliva and precome.

Peter was lost in the feeling of Wade's mouth, hardly believing it already felt this amazing and he hadn’t even taken his dick out of his underwear yet. He let out an especially loud moan when Wade reached up to pull him by the hips closer to the edge of the counter and then gave him another sharp spank on the ass. He leant back onto his elbows so he was almost laying on the surface under him, and brought one hand up to cover his mouth, embarrassed at the sounds he was making.

Wade of course, was having none of that and pulled back to growl “Put your fucking hand down, Baby boy. I want to hear you.” Before pulling the panties aside to free Peter’s cock, not hesitating before running his tongue up the underside and licking up the precome at the tip.

“Oh my god!” Peter moaned, his hand falling from his mouth to grip the edge of the counter, not noticing it crumbled slightly under the pressure the enhanced boy held on with. 

Wade took a second to enjoy the sight of Peter’s cock laying against his stomach, not huge but nicely curved and long just the way he liked them. It was ridiculous, even his junk was perfect. “Such a pretty cock, for a pretty boy. All pink and wet, just for me.” He grinned in satisfaction as Peter squirmed at his words, another drop of precome dripping out to show how he felt about the compliment. 

Wade started teasing the head of the boy’s dick, lapping around the crown and pulling the spongy tip into his mouth to suck at before releasing him and starting all over again. Once the noises Peter made started to get more and more desperate, interspersed with gasps of “Please…  _ Shit _ , please, Wade!” he finally wrapped his lips around the boy’s dick and took him in, inch by inch, until the cock was buried all the way into the back of his throat. 

Peter almost shouted at the sensation of all of him disappearing into Wade’s hot wet mouth, his hips twitching up involuntarily, only to be held down by a firm hand that only made him feel even hotter.

Wade paused there for a moment, running his other hand soothingly over the younger boy’s trembling stomach and lapping slightly at him, waiting until he was sure he wasn’t too overwhelmed to continue. He took in the glazed look in Peter’s eyes and spotted the counter trying to break off under his hand. Suddenly he was worried he was going too far. He carefully pulled off, savouring the broken whimper above him despite himself.

“You alright, Peter? Want me to keep going?” He asked, pressing a few kisses into the boy’s thighs and stomach as he waited for an answer.

For a minute Peter couldn’t quite figure out how to get his tongue to move in his mouth to answer, all his thoughts just zeroed in to the mouth moving sweetly over him, and how desperate he was to cum. "I'm okay." He got out, his voice weak. "Please don't stop."

"Your wish is my command." Wade said smugly before lowering his head back down.

For the next few minutes the air filled with Peter's moans and whimpers and the wet sounds of Wade fucking his mouth on the boy's dick. The sight of the younger boy writhing in pleasure above him might have been the hottest thing he had ever seen, and it took every bit of his self control to not take his dick out of his suit and jack-off watching him.

“Wade… I’m gunna… you gotta stop, I’m gunna..” Peter panted out, feeling himself getting close to the edge.

Wade pulled off with a pop and smirked up at him. “And exactly why does that mean I should stop?”

Peter groaned and covered his face with his arm. “Because I want you to…” He trailed off, not able to force the words out of his mouth.

Wade froze, not having any problems filling in any blanks. “Want me to what, Baby boy?” He said softly, trailing a hand up his thigh until the tip of a finger just brushed over where the back of the thong disappeared between his ass cheeks. “Are you asking me to fuck you, Peter?”

He whimpered and nodded, answering vocally beyond him.

“In that case… I definitely am not going to stop. You’ll take me easier with an orgasm already under your belt.” With that Wade all but dived back onto his dick, doubling down on sucking and licking over his member until Peter almost felt like he would cry from the pleasure of it.

When he felt himself about to peak, he tried to urge Wade up, but the older man only pulled off to say “Oh,  _ no Baby _ . I always swallow.” before doing just that. 

About ten seconds later Peter came with a shout, the orgasm ripping through him absolutely nothing like the results of the furtive middle of the night jack-off sessions he had had before.

Wade coaxed him through it, swallowing every drop and making sure to lick him clean, letting him go with a pop only once he started to squirm from overstimulation.

He let the younger boy recover, pulling his panties back up and stroking a hand down his quivering stomach and thighs. “How you doing? Still want me to fuck you?”

“Yes… Yes please. If… if you want to that is.” When Wade lifted his hands off him Peter was suddenly worried the mercenary would stop. 

“Don’t worry, Baby boy. I’m gunna have your ass like thanksgiving dinner. But I have some class, I’m not gunna pop your cherry in the kitchen.” He reassured, scooping him up by his thighs without further ado.

“Shit, Wade.” Peter cursed, not able to resist leaning forward and capturing the other’s lips as he wrapped his legs around him, a thrill going up his spine as he tasted himself on Wade’s tongue. 

They made their way to Wade’s bedroom,  _ somehow _ , and he dropped Peter down onto the bed, immediately crowding between his legs as they fell open to suck a mark into his neck.

He drank in the sound of the younger man’s moans, lowering down enough to rut his clothed erection against his thigh. The relief lasted all of a second before being overtaken by irritation at how tight his suit was around his crotch. He stood up with a growl and stripped out of it while Peter watched with wide eyes, arousal already working past his recent orgasm at the sight of the mercenary naked in front of him, his cock an impressive flushed weight against his thigh.

Wade met his eyes and for the first time seemed to falter, all of his own insecurities coming back to him now that he wasn’t lost in pleasuring the other. “Not exactly the firefighter’s charity stud calendar, I know.” He said, looking away.

“No. It’s not.” Peter replied, voice soft. “You’re a lot better than some pin up.”

Wade looked back at him, spread across his sheets in just his underwear, a smile on his face that made him believe just maybe some of the warm and gooshy feelings he had were returned.

“Stop being perfect.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll have to fuck that sass out of you, Baby boy.” He purred, walking around the bed to grab a bottle of lube from the bedside and letting it fall with a decisive  _ thump _ onto the bed next to the teen's thigh.

“Doesn’t that mean I should keep it up then?” Peter didn’t know if he was trying to taunt, or plead.

“Oh, you’ll be keeping it up.” Wade smirked, kneeling at the end of the bed and tugging him to the edge. “Alright?” He checked in as he tugged at one side of the boys panties.

When he got a nod he pulled them all the way off, taking a moment to savour that he was stripping Spiderman out of his underwear, and nudged at him to prompt him to spread his legs further.

Peter tensed as Wade uncapped the lube, but to his surprise all he felt at first was him kissing along his inner thigh like before.

“Relax, Peter. Open up for me.” And suddenly Wade’s mouth was on him. Not on his thigh, or even his cock. 

Peter moaned loudly as Wade’s tongue licked across his hole, melting into the mattress under him as the older man licked and sucked. Once he was relaxed and wet, Wade squirted some lube into his hand and ran one of his fingers around the quivering muscle before slowly pushing in, going as slow as he could even though he wanted to just fuck into the boy hard and fast right then and there.

Peter tensed back up at the first hint of the intruding finger, but slowly let go as Wade’s mouth continued to work around it, and he started carefully stretching him. Once he was loose enough he added a second finger, crooking them until he brushed the spot that made Peter all but mewl, squirming beautifully as he sped up, licking up his taint and past his balls to mouth at the underside of his cock. He licked up the pre-cum that had begun leaking as Peter became fully erect from the fingering, then took the head into his mouth. He worked in a third finger, using all of his patience to make sure he was stretched enough as the younger boy all but sobbed from the feeling of his mouth and hand.

“God, Wade. Please, please I’m ready!” Peter begged when he felt like he couldn’t last a moment longer without the mercenary’s cock inside him.

“Fuck, Baby boy. Who knew you could beg so pretty?” Wade growled, pulling out and standing up. 

Peter scooted back on the bed and Wade crawled over him while spreading slick over his aching cock, grimacing at the feeling of finally touching himself, beyond over-sensitive after spending all that time with his hands and mouth on the sweet bod under him.

“Are you sure? Last stop before you pass go and I collect 200 from your delectable ass.” He made himself check in one last time.

“I’m sure, Wade. I’m sure about you.” Peter said, looking him in the eye, knowing he was talking about far more than sex.

“You’re going to be the end of me, and I”m going to love every minute of it.” He hiked one of his legs around his waist and lined himself up, slowly sinking into him, both of them moaning at the feeling as he bottomed out. For a moment all he could do was pant into the teen's neck as he tried desperately to not cum on the spot at the feel of Peter squeezing around his cock.

Peter whined as he adjusted to the intrusion, not sure if the feeling was strange and overwhelming or the most amazing thing he had ever felt. He shifted and moaned as a wave of pleasure shot up his spine. “Wade, move! Please move!” 

“Fuck.” Wade growled, carefully pulling out and then thrusting back in, one hand on the boy's hip to hold him in place. The air filled with the sounds of panting and moaning, slapping skin as the heroes moved together frantically. 

“You feel so perfect, Baby boy. You take my cock so fucking well.” Wade said with a groan, leaning down and nipping at Peter's shoulder as his hands gripped the thighs wrapped around his waist.

Peter whined at the words, caught between the feeling of being pounded into, and the filthy words Wade said as he sucked and bit marks into his neck. “God, your mouth. I should have known you wouldn’t stop talking, even now.”

“Hell yeah, I got the fastest and most talented mouth you’ll ever see. Or feel.” He responded, punctuating the last part with a harder thrust.

“Yes! God, harder! I can take it, please!” Peter begged, feeling himself get closer and closer, his dick steadily leaking onto his stomach, the puddle of pre-cum growing the longer he was fucked.

“Mark your words.” Wade said with a grin that was all teeth, doubling down and fucking into the teen so hard he started sliding up the bed with every stroke. With a growl he grabbed both of his hips tight enough to bruise (At least for a little bit, Peter thought, damning his healing factor for the first time.) and started lifting him back onto his cock with every thrust.

Peter keened at the rough treatment, loving every minute of it, putting his arms around the other’s neck to pull him into a sloppy kiss.

Their tongues moved against each other as Wade pounded into him, hitting his prostate with almost every stroke. He pulled back with a groan as he felt the heat pooling in his gut start to overwhelm him.

“Wade, Wade I’m gunna cum.” He panted out.

“Oh really? You’re gunna cum on my dick, Baby boy? Don’t even need me to touch you? Fuck, you’re perfect. That’s right, Peter. Come for me.” Wade growled, somehow fucking him even harder, nailing his prostate perfectly, until Peter came with a shout, painting his stomach with cum.

“God fucking damnit, do you have any idea how much you make me go crazy?” Wade kept thrusting into him through the orgasm, chasing his own release as Peter started to writhe at the overstimulation, until with a groan deep in his chest he buried himself in Peter to the hilt and had maybe the greatest orgasm of his life.

Peter moaned at the feeling of the older man coming inside him, his dick giving a valiant twitch hinting at the possibility of another orgasm, but even he didn’t have a refractory period that fast.

After a moment the mercenary slowly pulled out, both of them hissing at the feeling of them disconnecting, and Wade rolled off of him with a groan. They were both panting like they had run through all the rooftops in New York and shaking slightly, completely done in by the strength of their orgasms.

“I was right.” Peter said eventually.

Wade looked over at him questioningly.

“I didn’t want you to behave.”

It took him a minute to trace the boy’s words to the comment that had somehow started… whatever the hell had just happened, and when he got there, Wade chuckled. “How about from now on, neither of us behave. Seems to have worked out pretty well.”

“I can agree to that. At least while we are here. No patrol sex.” Peter joked, inwardly thrilled at the implication they would be patrolling together again, and coming back to his place again,  _ and _ having sex again, Wade rolled over to pull the younger boy against him. He pressed a kiss into his shoulder over one of the many marks currently disappearing from his skin before answering.

“Baby boy, I’m pretty sure you could get me to agree to just about anything right now.”

“Oh. In that case, can you get a wash cloth or something? I’m starting to feel kind of gross.”

The apartment filled with the deep sound of Wade’s laughter. “Of course. Anything for you, Petey Pie.”

“Actually… you can call me, Penny.”


End file.
